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THE MORTAL MOON; 



OR, 



Bacon and his Masks. 



THE DEFOE PERIOD UNMASKED, 






-j^j% yi 



" He is an ill discoverer who thinks there is no land when he can see nothing 
but sea." — Bacon. 



NEW YORK : 

BURR PRINTING HOUSE, 

Frankfort and Jacob Sts.j 






Copyright, 1891, 
By J. E. ROE. 



Hi f^lfyiU^iti^ )\M 



DEDICATION. 



To all exercising that royalty of mind that suspends 
the judp^ment until the proofs are in, do we dedicate this 
work. Even those who would look into it, not to believe, 
but for its novelty, romance, pretty chain of relations, 
and bits of good literature, will upon like condition, be 
included in our dedication. 



PREFACE. 



The relational facts and circumstances connected with 
the life of Lord Bacon will be here found collated and 
marshalled beyond the cloud, and so that the reader shall 
himself say. Bacon stands in new light. Here he may 
likewise find short steps to the heart of the Baconian 
philosophy. 

The several masks under which Lord Bacon performed 
his great hitherto undisclosed work will be brought into 
relation with his generally attributed writings, and be 
found to be, not merely in harmony with, but to be their 
principles expanded in detail ; and thus, after a suspen- 
sion of upward of two hundred and fifty years, their re- 
stored relations. 

Having reached our conclusions with care, we hesitate 
not in making a claim which we feel that time and close 
investigation must ripen into belief. We indeed here open 
a door to methods which must erelong surprise the world. 
And the matter, coming through the highest mortal 
reaches, and, according to design, largely upon the wings 
of romance, must make it ever permanent with the race. 
As to the setting of the ants, the race, anew at work 
Bacon himself says : '* And certainly I have raised up 
here a little heap of dust, and stored under it a great many 
grains of sciences and arts, into which the ants may creep 
and rest for awhile and then prepare themselves for fresh 
labors. Xow the wisest of kings refers sluggards to the 
ants ; and for my part, I hold all men for sluggards who 



VI PREFACE. 

care only to use what tliey have got, without preparing for 
new seed-times and new harvests of knowledge." 

Keasons for the first part of our title will in due time 
appear. 

The interpretation of the play of Hamlet and of The 
Tempest, and which only we have attempted to handle, 
will be found new, as will our interpretation of the son- 
nets, and in which alone we shall endeavor to rev^ard the 
reader for any labor he may bestow upon this work. In- 
deed, its Shake-speare features will be found to have an 
interest for the general reader which they have not hitherto 
possessed, in that, instead of giving a multitude of merely 
grouped together parallelisms, we give a history, wherein 
these, as far as space and circumstance will permit, are 
made to fall into relation. We have, in fact, so far as 
may be, made Lord Bacon his own Robinson Crusoe ; and 
thus to tell the story of his life, and concerning whose 
doings will be found greater romance than was ever yet 
spread in an Arabian tale. J. E. R. 

May 30, 1891. 



COI^TENTS. 



PAGE 

Description of the Masks, 9 

Gkounds of Belief, 12 

WoEKs OF Kefeeence, ........ 15 

Inteoduction, ......... 17 

Kelational Facts 117 

Life of Bacon, 178 

The Tempest, 319 

The Stoet of My Life, 347 

Baconian Feamewoek in Ceusoe, . . , . . . . 388 

Haeley and Defoe, 402 

The Theead of the Labyeinth 447 



THE MASKS. 



1. The Anatomy of Abuses, by Phillip Stubbs. This 
vigorous, though evidently youthful treatise, consisting 
of 229 pages, first appeared in 1583, when Bacon was but 
twenty-two years of age. It was probably the earliest pub- 
lic production from his pen, and is replete with forceful 
expressions of early Puritan views against then existing 
abuses. It was dedicated to the Earl of Arundel, at whose 
house Lord Bacon is said to have died, in 1626. 

2. All those writings appearing between the years 1585 
and 1623, and generally attributed to William Shakespeare. 
Bacon here painted forth to the public eye, and shook a 
spear at the foibles of men — in other words, at their ruling 
follies. 

3. The Court of King James, by A. D. B. This work 
was put forth under these initials as a mask in 1619. It 
consists of a brief treatise of 168 pages upon courts of 
princes, and particularly of that of James the First of 
England. It was dedicated to the Duke of Buckingham, 
whose religious opinions and other conduct it was evi- 
dently designed to influence ; and who, by reason of it, as 
we shall claim, became one, if not the chief mover of 
Bacon's cloud and of the tempest that followed. 

4. The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Democritus Junior. 
This work is doubtless the accumulation of years, but was 
put forth in 1621, the year during which Lord Bacon's 
troubles began, though not then first put forth, as has 
generally been supposed. In Bacon's attributed writings 
Democritus is indeed a most prominent figure. In his 
article entitled " Of the Interpretation of Nature" (Works, 
vol. ii., p. 548) Bacon says : " Democritus, I think, did 
not unhappily philosophize when, attributing immense 
variety and infinite succession to nature, he set himself 
against almost all other philosophers, the slaves of custom, 
and given over to secularities, and by this opposition, bring- 
ing both errors into collision, destroyed both and opened 



10 THE MA3KS. 

some way for trutli between the extremes." And in 
vol. i., p. 437, he, among other things of Democritus, 
says he " was deemed by universal consent the greatest of 
natural philosophers and obtained the name of a wise man ;" 
while in Aphorism 51 of the Novum Organum he says : 
^' But it is better to dissect than abstract nature ; such was 
the method employed by the school of Democritus, which 
made greater progress in penetrating nature than the rest." 

Eobert Barton's name became tirst associated with this 
work some years after his death, which occurred in 1639, 
and after it had passed through many editions. Of Bur- 
ton's life little is known, and this great work is the only 
literary product with which his name is associated. Its 
note-book range of knowledge is truly encyclopaedic. It 
will be found to contain allusions to all of the fables 
treated in Bacon's " Wisdom of the Ancients," and is re- 
plete with all of those elements wrought so forcefully into 
the so-called Shakespeare plays. The causes of the malady 
that threatened Hamlet and that quite overtook Ophelia 
are graphically set forth. Some few events occurring since 
Bacon's death may, it is true, be found in the work, but 
which we shall claim interpolations ; for it must be dis- 
tinctly borne in mind that claimed additions and corrections 
by Burton himself before his death have since that event 
been made to the work, as from its introduction will ap- 
pear. Now in the light of this statement, let it be noted 
that this work was first issued in one volume, 8vo, purple 
morocco (Bacon at his wedding was clothed in a full suit 
of purple), by Bright T., as author, in 1586, when Burton 
was but ten years of age, he having been born February 
8th, 1576 ; and which fact must, we think, put Burton's 
claims, or rather those made for him, at rest. 

5. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Foe, or Defoe. Under 
this head we include all that literature which is now at- 
tributed to Daniel Defoe, Dean Swift, and some others, 
political tools of Robert Harley, the noted manuscript 
collector of the Defoe period and first Earl of Oxford, and 
put forth at various dates between the years 1685 and 
1731, and which, however inconsistent it may at first 
appear, we shall claim as brought forth from the dusty 
manuscripts of Lord Bacon's pen. And ultimately we 
shall reach the question as to the mental forces that set in 
operation the English Revolution of 1688. 



THE MASKS. 11 

6. The Pilgrim's Progress and The Holy War, by John 
Bunyan. Concerning the first, we qnote from a copy of 
Bunyan^s life as follows : " The finest specimen of well- 
sustained allegory in any language is the composition 
of this self-taught rustic, who little aimed at literary celeb- 
rity in the homely parable which he wrote to solace his 
prison hours for the religious instruction of the common 
people. The most admirable exposition of the elements 
of Christian theology, one which is so little of a controver- 
sial or sectarian character, that it may confessedly be read 
without offence by sober-minded Protestants of all persua- 
sions, and yet so comprehensive as to form the best possible 
body of divinity, is the composition of an obscure, itiner- 
ant preacher, whose apostolic labors consigned him, in the 
days of the Stuarts, to a twelve years' imprisonment in 
Bedford jail for no other crime than his nonconformity." 

As we design to make this work a subject for special 
consideration, we shall but enlarge upon it here suthciently 
to move it to its place in the great Baconian system yet to 
be unfolded. 

If, then, our claims, new laid and under better light, be 
true, we may cease to wonder that Lord Bacon was content 
to say : " For my name and memory, I leave it to men's 
charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next 
ages." 

His comprehensive wisdom foresaw that the real truth 
must ultimately appear, and so in the so-called Shake- 
speare Sonnet 55, he, of himself says, that he shall live in 
it and in them, and until a true judgment of himself is 
made or shall arise. He says : 

" Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ; 

But yon shall shine more bright in these contents 

Than unswept stones, besmear'd with sluttish tiaie. 

When wasteful war shall statues overturn. 

And broils root out the w^ork of masonry, 

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn 

The living record of your memory. 

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity 

Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room, 

Even in the eyes of all posterity. 

That wear this world out to the ending doom. 

So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes," 



GEOUJSIDS OF BELIEF. 



The works here brought under review are claimed as 
products of oDe and the same mind, and that mind Lord 
Bacon's. 

1. Not because of suspicious circumstances lurking 
about these writings, and particularly about the Defoe liter- 
ature. 

2. Not because the first edition of the Anatomy of Mel- 
ancholy appeared in 1586, when its alleged author was but 
ten years of age. 

3. Not because the supposed author of the plays never 
appeared in print outside them, nor gave producible evi- 
dence of his pen save in but three variably spelled and so 
poorly written signatures to business papers as to be 
scarcely legible. 

4. Not because of the supreme inconsistency that an 
untaught rustic could have been author of " the finest 
specimen of well-sustained allegory in any language," 
the product being at the same time, confessedly, " so 
comprehensive as to form the best possible body of divin- 
ity." 

5. Not because while in the Defoe literature we have a 
most astute philosopher, we still have not a philosophy, 
but only the branches of a philosophy, and the Baconian 
branches. 

6. Not because portions of the Defoe literature cover 
the field of Natural Theology, which Lord Bacon marked 
ofl! from Inspired Divinity and made a distinct branch of 
philosophy. 

7. Not because it was unqualifiedly affirmed by Lord 
Bacon that he had completed a host of divine works, 
though no such works have ever been attributed to him. 



GROUJS'DS OF BELIEF. 13 

In the introductory matter to liis crowning work, the 
Novum Organum, he says : '* But after furnishing the 
understanding with the most surest helps and precautions, 
and having completed, by a rigorous levy, a complete host 
of divine works, nothing remains to be done but to attack 
philosophy herself." 

8. Not because he said he had " obeyed the humor of the 
times, and played the nurse both with his own thoughts and 
those of others," though no such writings or piece of writ- 
ing has ever been attributed to him ; nor because he said 
he intended to write some patterns of natural story. 

9. Not because he, in ch. 3, of Book 8, of the De 
Augmentis, put forth in 1623, said : " And if I should 
hereafter have leisure to write upon government, the work 
will probably either be posthumous or abortive." 

10. Not because there is to be found in portions of the 
Defoe literature a hand other than the one in which the 
body of the work is couched. 

11. Not because Lord Bacon expressed a distinct in- 
tention to put forth portions of his work under chosen 
devices. 

12. Not because his knowledge concerning the wisdom 
of the ancients and the distinctive use of that knowledge 
is spread through all this literature. 

13. Not because his central views as to mythology, 
astrology, magic, and apparitions are throughout the 
same. 

14. Not, in fact, because the wide research of the one, 
and in all directions, is the research of all. 

15. Not because the opinions on religious, scientific, 
social, and political questions are the same in all. 

16. Not because of the wide familiarity with legal prin- 
ciples and the subtle knowledge concerning courts of 
princes displayed in all. 

17. Not because the metaphors of the one are the meta- 
phors of all. 

18. Not because certain adroitly chosen combinations of 
words — that is, set forms of expression, of the one are the 
set forms in all. 

19. Not, in fact, because the broad, scientific, and dis- 
tinctively set vocabulary of the one is the distinctive vocab- 
ulary of all. 

20. And so not by reason of any one of the foregoing do 



14 GROUNDS OF BELIEF. 

we lay our claim, but distinctly by reason of them all, 
when they shall have been drawn into their Just and true 
relations. 

As these works are but masks, so no change should, we 
think, take place in their titles. 



"WOEKS OF EEFEEENOE. 



Between the years 1594 and 1596 Sir Francis Bacon 
made certain notes termed " Formularies and Elegances," 
and numbering from 1 to 1655. They were found among 
the Harleian collection as Ko. 7017. They have a further 
division into folios, the series beginning with fol. 83 and 
ending with fol. 132, and consist of 50 pages. What 
became of the earlier folios, if there were any, does not 
appear. All save some French proverbs, at the end of the 
series, are in Bacon's own hand. It is stated that there is 
no record as to whence Harley received this manuscript. 
The group has come to be distinguished as Bacon's ^' Pro- 
mus of B'ormalaries and Elegances," the word " Promus" 
being taken from one of the sheets having this heading. 
The word is defined by Bacon in the De Augmentis, ch. 2, 
Book 7. A description of them may be found in Bacon's 
literary works by Spedding, vol. ii., p. 190. 

As Mr. Spedding has given but comparatively few of 
them, we have in our investigation made use of Mrs. 
Henry Pott's fine edition, published by Longmans, Green 
& Co., in 1883. 

We have, likewise, made use of the following : — viz., the 
Ellis, Spedding, and Heath editions of Lord Bacon's works, 
where the letters, literary, professional, and philosophical 
writings are in volumes by themselves. Our investigation 
began, however, with the American edition of Lord Bacon's 
works, in three volumes, by Basil Montague, and which we 
have distinguished simply by the word works, referring to 
volume and page. Though somewhat poor in arrange- 
ment, still this work is of much value in that it departs 
little, we think, from the true phraseology of Bacon. 
This not containing the De Augmentis, the Bohn edition 
of that work has been somewhat used. In every instance, 



16 ■ WORKS OF REFERENCE. 

howeverj reference has been made to book and chapter, 
though the editions somewhat differ. 

The Hudson edition of the Shakespeare writings, in 
eleven vohimes, published by 'Nojes, Holmes & Co., in 
1872. 

The twelfth English edition of the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, published in 1821, by Longmans & Co. and others. 
This twelfth edition contains the first published account 
of Burton, its alleged author. 

As there is no good uniform edition of Defoe's writings 
that contains them all, we have made use of the Bohn 
edition so far as it goes, and which is accessible to all. 
When a work not found in it is referred to, the Talboy or 
Hazlitt edition, each of which we have, will be used, indi- 
cating at the same time to which edition it belongs. 

In referring to Addison's works, the Bohn edition has 
been used. 

We have used a small cheap volume of Swift's writings 
found in the Camelot Classic Series, edited by Ernest 
Rhys, and which those interested in our subject would do 
well to possess, as will be made to appear late in the work. 
That Swift, Defoe, and other actors in the scheme of 
the Defoe period, were one and the same, so far as their 
writings are concerned, is not, we think, matter of ques- 
tion. The mentioned edition not containing Gulliver's 
Travels, we have used the admirable, though cheap edition 
of that work in the Grladstone Series. 

We have also used the cheap Arlington edition of The 
Pilgrim's Progress. Any further needful statement con- 
cerning the works under review may be found in the work 
itself. 



IE"TEODUOTIO]Sr, 



As the steps that have led an author into new fields of 
investigation, are commonly matters of interest to the 
reader, and especially where the product stands aside from 
the beaten path of accepted thought, they will be here 
somewhat carefully set forth. 

Having some years previous to the investigation here set 
out, possessed myself of the matchless story entitled Robin- 
son Crusoe, which all have in youth read with such de- 
light, I turned upon my heel with full intent of renewing 
in it my boyhood ; but placing the book upon my shelves, 
other business and other years intervened, during which 
time the measured sentences of Lord Bacon, as embraced 
in his philosophical writings, quite absorbed my leisure 
hours, until one day, casting about for some special diver- 
sion in books, my attention again fell upon my sweet 
morsel, which taken now in hand, I set out in good earnest 
upon my old resolve. I had not been long out in the 
voyage — that is, in the entertainment of the story, before 
I found myself in a kind of surprise to see how one, by 
like measured sentences, could make simple elements so 
plain, forceful, and intensely interesting. Something also 
about the general framework of the sentences, and of the 
peculiar and distinctive Baconian use of certain words and 
set forms of expression, impressed my mind, which now 
turned instinctively, as it were, from Crusoe to that same 
narrational style found in Bacon's New Atlantis ; and 
everywhere displayed in the narrational portions of the 
Defoe literature. Having turned to the New Atlantis, 
first published in 1627, the year following Lord Bacon's 
death, I read its brief introduction by Dr. Rawley in these 
words : 

" This fable my lord devised to the end that he might 



18 IJ^TRODUCTION. 

exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted 
for the interpreting of nature and the production of great 
and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name 
of Solomon's House, or the College of the Six Days' Works. 
And even so far his lordship hath proceeded as to finish that 
part. Certainly the model is more vast and high than can 
possibly be imitated in all things, notwithstanding most 
things therein are within men's power to effect. His lord- 
ship thought also in this present fable to have composed a 
frame of laws or of the best state or mould of a common- 
wealth ; but foreseeing it would be a long work, his desire 
of collecting the Natural History diverted him, which he 
preferred many degrees before it. 

" This work of the New Atlantis (as much as concerneth 
the English edition) his lordship designed for this place, 
in regard it hath so near affinity (in one j)art of it) with 
the preceding Natural History." 

Lord Bacon not only designed the New Atlantis to fol- 
low his Natural History, but he set it forth in his true 
narrational style. Yet it will be found to be the only 
like piece of composition now attributed to him, and this 
not published until after his death. 

The introduction finished, I directed my attention to 
the body of the work, and by careful and systematic com- 
parison of the framework of its sentences, and of the 
peculiar and distinctive use of certain words, as well as of 
certain set forms of expression, both here and everywhere 
displayed in Bacon's attributed writings, with those in 
Crusoe, I saw, as I thought, a oneness not only of style 
but of individuality ; and I ask of the reader to make for 
himself a like comparison, as well before as after he shall 
have reached our argument or true thread of relations. 

I next turned to a parliamentary speech by Lord Ba- 
con touching the New Atlantis and the Recovering of 
Drowned Mineral Works, and read as follows : 

" My Lords and Gentlemen : The king, my royal 
master, was lately graciously pleased to move some dis- 
course to me concerning Mr. Sutton's hospital and such 
like worthy foundations of memorable piety, which, hum- 
bly seconded by myself, drew his majesty into a serious 
consideration of the mineral treasures of his own terri- 
tories, and the practical discoveries of them by way of my 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

philosophical theory ; which he then so well resented that 
afterward, upon a mature digestion of my whole design, 
he commanded me to let your lordships understand how 
great an inclination he hath to further so hopeful a work, 
for the honour of his dominions, as the most probable 
means to relieve all the poor thereof, without any other 
stock or benevolence than that which divine bounty should 
confer on their own industries and honest labours, in re- 
covering all such drowned mineral works as have been or 
shall be therefore deserted. 

" And, my lords, all that is now desired of his majesty 
and your lordships is no more than a gracious act of this 
present Parliament to authorize them herein, adding a 
mercy to a munificence, which is, the persons of such 
strong and able petty felons, who, in true penitence foi- 
their crimes, shall implore his majesty's mercy and per- 
mission to expiate their offences by their assiduous labours 
in so innocent and hopeful a work. 

" For by this unchargeable way, my lords, have I pro- 
posed to erect the academical fabric of this island's Solo- 
mon's House, modelled in my New Athintis. And I can 
hope, my lords, that my midnight studies, to make our 
countries flourish and outvie Euro23ean neighbours in 
mysterious and beneficent arts, have not so ungratefally 
affected your noble intellects that you will delay or resist 
his majesty's desires and my humble petition in this 
benevolent, yea magnificent affair, since your honourable 
posterities may be enriched thereby, and my ends are only 
to make the world my heir,' and the learned fathers of my 
Solomon's House the successive and sworn trustees in the 
dispensation of this great service for God's glory, my 
prince's magnificence, this Parliament's honour, our coun- 
tries general good, and the propagation of my own memory. 

" And I may assure your lordships that all my proposals 
in order to this great archetype seemed so rational and 
feasible to my royal sovereign, our Christian Solomon, 
that I thereby prevailed with his majesty to call this 
honourable Parliament, to confirm and empower me in 
my own way of mining,^ by an act of the same, after his 

' Note the expression, " make the world my heir," in connection 
with the last line of sonnet No. 6. 

'^ Note that mining, as well as the recovery of treasure from the 
deep, was to be included in, this enterprise. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

majesty's more wefglity affairs were considered in your 
wisdoms ; both which he desires your lordships and you 
gentlemen that are chosen as the patriots of your respec- 
tive countries to take speedy care of ; which done, I shall 
not then doubt the happy issue of my undertakings in this 
design, whereby concealed treasures, which now seem ut- 
terly lost to mankind, shall be confined to so universal a 
piety, and brought into use by the industry of converted 
penitents, whose wretched carcasses the impartial laws have 
or shall dedicate as untimely feasts to the worms of the 
earth, in whose womb* those deserted mineral riches must 
ever lie buried as lost abortments, unless those be made 
the active midwives^ to deliver them. For, my lords, 
I humbly conceive them to be the fittest^ of all men to 
effect this great work, for the ends and causes which I 
have before expressed. 

" All which, my lords, I humbly refer to your grave and 
solid judgments to conclade of, together with such other 
assistances to this frame* as your own oraculous wisdom 
shall intimate, for the magnifying our Creator in his in- 
scrutable providence and admirable works of nature." 
(W^orks, vol. ii., p. 463.) 

After reading this speech by Bacon touching the New 

^ In Hamlet we have the expression, the " extorted treasure in the 
womb of earth." Note throughout these writings the use of tlie 
word " womb" as a figure of speecli, and particularly in the Shake- 
speare literature. 

2 This use by Bacon of the word "midwife" is distinctive and 
unusual. It will be found many times in Defoe and three times in 
his Jure Diviao. From its third book we give the following : 

" The fluttering wind of incoherent thought, 
Midwifed by reason, brings contrivance out ; 
She forms from things incongruous and dull, 
And hews the man of sense out from the fool ; 
For thought's a vapour fluid and unfix'd, 
With inconsistent clouds of fancy mix'd ; 
But when condensed by reason, and reduced, 
Science and argument are soon infused." 

We shall later have occasion to draw this word more sharply into 
relation, 

"Note everywhere the constant use of the word "fit" and 
" fittest." 

^ Note, in like manner, the use of the word "frame," and par- 
ticularly in the Shakespeare literature. 



INTRODUCTION^. 21 

Atlantis, we turned to p. 87, vol. i., of the Anatomy of 
Melancholy, pat forth subsequent to his fall, and read as 
follows : 

" I will yet,^ to satisfy and please myself, make an Utopia 
of mine own, a new Atlantis, a jDoetical commonwealth of 
mine own, in which 1 will freely domineer, build cities, 
make laws, statutes, as I list myself. And why may I 
not ? — pictoribus at que poet is, etc. You know what liberty 
poets ever had ; and, besides, my predecessor Democritus 
was a politician, a recorder of Abdera, a law-maker, as 
some say ; and why may not I presume so much as he 
did: Howsoever, 1 will adventure.'' For the site, if you 
will needs urge me to it, I am not fully resolved : it may 
be in Terra Australis Incognita ; there is room enough 
(for, of my knowledge, neither that hungry Spaniard nor 
Mercurius Britannicus have yet discovered half of it) ; or 
else one of those floating islands in Mare del Zur, which, 
like the Oyanean isles in the Euxine Sea, alter their place, 
and are accessible only at set times, and to some few per- 
sons ; or one of the Fortunate Isles ; for who knows yet 
where or which they are? There is. room enough in the 
inner parts of America and northern coasts of Asia. But 
I will choose a cite whose latitude shall be 45 degrees 
(I respect not minutes), in the midst of the temjierate 
zone, or perhaps under the equator, that paradise of the 
world uhi semper virens laurus, etc., where is a perpetual 
spring. The longitude,^ for some reasons, I will conceal. 
Yet be it knoiun to all men by these presents, that if any 

' Note the expression, " I will yet," as though some original de- 
sign had failed. 

'^ This word "adventure" will be found a distinctive Baconian 
word, and spread everywhere in this literature. In his expostulatory 
letter to Lord Coke (Works, vol. iii., p. 34) Bacon says : " This letter, 
if it shall be answered by you in deed and not in word, I suppose it 
will not be the worse for us both ; else it is but a few^ lines lost, 
which for a smaller matter I w^ould adventure." In Romeo and 
Juliet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 68, we have : 

" I am no pilot ; yet wert thou as far 
As that vast sliore wash'd by the farthest sea, 
I would adventure for such merchandise." 

Bacon's Promus Note, " 584 : Good watch chaseth ill-adventure.' 

^ Note for future reference that the longitude was to be con- 
cealed. Note also the words, " Mare del Zur" and " Terra Australis 
Incognita." 



22 INTRODUCTIOiq". 

honest gentleman will send in so much money as Cardan^ 
allows an astrologer for casting a nativity, he shall be a 
sharer ; I will acquaint him with my project ; or, if any 
worthy man will stand for any temjooral or spiritual office 
or dignity (for, as he said of his archbishoprick of Utopia, 
^tis sanctus cwibitus, and not amiss to be sought after),* it 
shall be freely given without alP intercessions, bribes, let- 
ters, etc., his own worth shall be the best spokesman ; and 
(because we shall admit of no deputies or advowsons) if he 
be sufficiently qualified, and as able as willing to execute 
the place himself, he shall have present possession. It 
shall be divided into twelve or thirteen provinces ; and 
those, by hills, rivers, rode-ways, or some more eminent 
limits, exactly bounded." 

Here follow views for many pages as to this model gov- 
ernment. Its thirteen divisions will, in number, be found 
the same as mentioned in the New Atlantis. Bacon's de- 
sire to frame laws for such a government will appear in 
our already quoted introduction to that work. 

The end to be secured by this enterprise may be gath- 
ered from the page preceding that just quoted, which is 
in these words : 

^^ As Hercules^ purged the world of monsters and suh- 

^ In connection with Bacon's knowledge of astrology and magic, 
we note that he was acquainted with Cardan as an author. In his 
mentioned letter to Coke we have : " Cardan saith that weeping, 
fasting, and sighing are the chief purges of grief ; indeed, naturally 
they do assuage sorrow," etc. (Works, vol ii., p. 488.) 
^ 2 The expression " without all," as here used, is certainly distinc- 
tive and unusual, but is spread into every phase of this literature. 
Bacon, in the Advancement of Learning (Philosophical Works, vol. 
iii., p. 273), says: "Again, for that other conceit that learning 
should undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is 
assuredly a mere depravation and calumny without all shadow of 
truth." Pie also uses the expression "without all controversy;" 
"without all fiction ;" " without all life ;" " without all remorse, " etc. 
In The Anatomy of Abuses, p. 151 and 195, we have " without 
all remorse;" "without all doubt." In The Pilgrim's Progress, 
p. 229, we have " without all doubt." In Macbeth, Act iii., sc. 2, 
p. 289, we have " without all remedy." In All's Well that Ends 
Well, Act ii.. sc. 3, p. 312, we have " without all terms of pity." In 
the A. D. B. mask we in the preface have " without all sigh," and, 
p. 43, " without all controversy." 

" Bacon says : " And knowledge referred to some particular point 
of use is but as Harmonides, which putteth down one tyrant, and 
not like Hercules, who did perambulate the world to suppress tyrants 
and giants and monsters of every kind. (Phil. Works, vol. iii. . p. 222.) 



INTRODUCTION". 23 

clued them, so did he fight against envy, lust, anger, ava- 
rice, etc., and all those feral vices and monsters of the mind. 
It were to be wished^ we had some such yisitor, or (if 
wishing would serve) one had such a ring or rings as 
Timoh^iis desired in Lucian/ by virtue of which he 
should be as strong as ten thousand men or an army of 
giants, go invisible, open gates and castle doors, have 
what treasure he would, transport himself in an instant to 
what j^lace he desired, alter affections, cure all manner of 
diseases, that he might range over the world, and reform 
all distressed states and persons, as he would himself/ 
He might reduce those wandering Tartars in order, that 
infest China on the one side, Muscovy, Poland, on the 
other ; and tame the vagabond Arabians that rob and spoil 
those Eastern countries, that they should never use more 
caravans or janizaries to conduct them. He might root 
out barbarism out of America and fully discover Terra 
Australis Incognita ; find out the north-east and north- 
west passages ; drean those mighty Meeotian fens ; cut 
down those vast Hercynian woods, irrigate those barren 
Arabian deserts, etc., cure us of our epidemical diseases — 
scorhutum, iMca, morhus Neapolitanus, etc. — end all our 
idle controversies ; cut off our tumultuous desires, inordi- 
nate lusts ; root out atheism, impiety, heresy, schism and 
superstition, which now so crucify the world ; catechise 
gross ignorance ; purge^ Italy of luxury and riot, Spain of 
superstition and jealousy, Germany of drunkenness, all 
our northern countries of gluttony and intemperance ; 
castigate our hard- hearted parents, masters, tutors ; lash 
disobedient children, negligent servants ; correct these 
spendthrifts and prodigal sons ; enforce idle persons to 
work ; drive drunkards off the ale-house ; repress thieves, 
visit corrupt and tyrannizing magistrates, etc." 

^ The expression " It were to be wislied " was frequently em- 
ployed by Bacon. 

2 It^ is unnecessary to say that with Lord Bacon Lucian was a 
prominent figure, as what one of these authors had read, they had 
all read. More properly speaking, they were all Bacon's products. 

^ As to the expression " as he would himself," see note 1, p. 25. 

* Note throughout these writings this oft used word "purge." 
Note also that Bacon's vocabulary has not one set of words for mental, 
and another for physical, operations. Again, the rule is, and which 
has assisted our in;^estigations, that when Bacon has placed a word, 
that is his word for that place. 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

From the New Atlantis and onr reflections concerning 
it, our thoughts turned to a well-remembered letter ad- 
dressed by Lord Bacon in early life to his uncle, Lord 
Burghley, then High Treasurer of England, asking official 
position ; and which we then took occasion to turn to and 
here give in full for the benefit of the reader ; for though 
the New Atlantis serves as an entering wedge which will 
be struck later in the work, this letter serves as a kind of 
opening and continuing headlight to what we have pur- 
posed in this investigation. It is in these words : 

" My Lord : With as much confidence as mine own honest 
and faithful devotion unto your service and your honorable 
correspondence unto me and my poor estate can breed^ in 
a man, do I commend myself unto your lordship. I .wax 
now somewhat ancient : one and thirty years is a great 
deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, 
I find confirmed ; and I do not fear that action shall im- 
23a ir it, because I account my ordinary course of study and 
meditation to be more painful than most parts of action 
are. I ever bear a mind (in some middle place^ that I 
could discharge) to serve her majesty, not as a man born 
under Sol, that lovetli honour, nor under Jupiter, that 
loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me 
away wholly), but as a man born under an excellent sov- 
ereign that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. 
Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love but that 
the greater parts of my thoughts are to deserve well (if 
I were able) of my friends, and namely of your lordship, who, 
being the Atlas'* of this commonwealth, the honour of my 

^ Note, and particularly in the plays, the use of the word " breed," 
to iudicate increase in any form. In The Merchant of Venice, Act 1., 
sc. 3, p. 41, we have : 

" If thou Milt lend this money, lend it not 
As to thy friends ; (for when did friendship take 
A breed of barren metal of his friend ?) 
But lend it rather to thine enemy ; 
Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face 
Exact the penalty." 

^ Note in all this literature the words *' middle place," and " mid- 
dle region." The two extremes are the rocks and the gulf. The 
thought takes its rise in his interpretation of the fable entitled " Scylla 
and Iscarus ; or, The Middle Way." 

^ In tlie introduction to the A. D. B. mask will be found this use of 



INTRODUCTION". 26 

house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I am 
tied' by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an un- 
worthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ 
whatsoever I am, to do you service. Again, the meanness 
of my estate doth somewhat move me ; for though I can- 
not accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, 
yet my health is not to spend nor my course to get. 
Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as 
I have moderate civil ends f for I have taken all knowl-. 
edge to be my providence f and if I could purge it of two 
sorts of rovers, whereof the one, with frivolous disputations, 
confutations, and verbosities, the other, with blind experi- 
ments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath com- 
mitted so many spoils,* I hope I should bring in industrious 
observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inven- 
tions and discoveries — the best state of that providence. 
This, whether it be curiosity, or vainglory, or nature, or 
(if one take it favorably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my 

the word Atlas in the expression, " Yea, the very business, and 
(under God) the Atlas of his nation." And in Henry VI., part 3, 
Act v., sc. 1, p. 437, we have : 

" War. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight : 
And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again ; 
And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject." 

^ Note everywhere the use of this word "tie" and "tied." In 
the Taming of the Shrew, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 450, we have : 

" Bian. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong, 
To strive for that which resteth in my choice : 
I am no breeching scholar in the schools ; 
I'll not be tied to hours, nor 'pointed times. 
But learn my lessons as I please myself." 

In The Winter's Tale, Act v., sc. 1, p. 137, we have : 

"I am sorry. 
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking. 
Where you were tied in duty ; and as sorry. 
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, 
That you might well enjoy her." 

' Note throughout this literature a distinctive use of this word 
"ends." 

^ This distinctive and unusual use of the word " providence" we 
shall later have occasion to review. 

■* We have here an allusion, we think, to time already expended 
upon the subjects of magic, astrology, and apparitions, later to be 
considered. 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

mind as ifc cannot be removed. And I do' easily see 
that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring com- 
mandment of more wits than a man's own ; which is the 
thing I greatly effect. And for your lordship, perhaps 
you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any 
other. And if your lordship shall find now, or at any 
time, that I do seek or effect any place whereunto any 
that is nearer unto your lordship shall be concurrent, say 
then that I am a most dishonest man. And if your lord- 
ship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, 
who reduced himself with contemi")lation unto voluntary 
poverty, but this I will do — I will sell the inheritance that I 
have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue or some 
office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give 
over^ all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker 
or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which (he said) lay 
so deep. This which I have writ unto your lordship is 
rather thoughts than words, being set down without all 
art,^ disguising, or reservation ; wherein I have done 
honour both to your lordship's wisdom, in judging that 
that will be best believed of your lordship which is truest ; 
and to your lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing 
from you. And even so I wish your lordship all happi- 
ness, and to myself means and occasion to be added to my 

^ Note, and seemingly for mere emphasis, Bacon's oft use of this 
verb " do," and its same use throughout the plays. 

'^ Note throughout the expression " giv^e over," and particularly 
in the stories of Defoe ; in other words, in the narrational portions 
of this literature. In Addison, vol. iv., p. 250, we have : " My lion 
having given over roaring for some time, I find that several stories 
have been spread abroad in the country to his disadvantage." In 
the pla}^ of Pericles, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 348, we have : 

"Panel. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a pro- 
portion to live quietly, and so give over. 

" Baicd. Why to give over, 1 pray you ? is it a shame to get when 
we are old?" 

^ Note the expression " without all art." Already have we called 
attention to this Baconianism. In Macbeth, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 289, 
we have : 

" Things without all remedy 
Should be without regard : wliat's done, is done." 

In All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii., sc. 3, p. 312, we have : 
" Without all terms of pit.y : speak ; thine answer." 
And in Addison, vol. v., p. 118, w'e have " without all controversy." 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

faithful desire to do you service.^ From my lodging at 
Gray's Inn." (Works, vol. iii., p. 1.) 

Did he sell the inheritance ? Did he become the " sorry 
book-maker ?" He certainly did not get the position, nor 
does he appear to have secured any, at least of a political 
nature, until some sixteen years later, this letter having 
been written in 1592. 

The impression produced upon a mind such as we shall 
find Burleigh to have possessed by these high pretensions, 
from a young man of but thirty-one years, may well be 
imagined. He doubtless thought them as impudently in- 
consistent as our own claims may now appear to many of 
our readers, and yet how truly and fully did he fulfil them 
to men. This letter, and drawn forth by his necessities, 
contains, so far as we know, the first intimation from Lord 
Bacon's pen as to the great conceptions and purposes 
which lay in his mind, and its key-note is, "I have taken 
all knowledge to be my providence." 

This distinctive use of the word ^^ providence " will later 
be called under review. The letter finished, we turned to 
the introduction of our book Crusoe, and there found, 
though not credited, that the work had been claimed as a 
product of the pen of Sir Robert Harley, our noted manu- 
script collector and first Earl of Oxford, during his im- 
prisonment in the Tower on a charge of high treason in 
1714, soon after the accession of George the First to the 
English throne, and where he remained in confinement 
nearly two years, and whose political tool Defoe, the now 
accredited author of Crusoe, was, as we shall see. 

^ To sliow that Bacon made use of his Promus notes, we give the 
following : 

Promus, 116. Wishing you all, etc., and myself occasion to do 
you service. 

Promus, 117. I shall be glad to understand your news, but none 
rather than some overture wherein I may do you service. 

Note this proffer of service throughout the Shakespeare writings. 

In Timon of Athens, Act v., sc. 1, p. 112, we have : 

" Both. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service." 
In Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 247, we have : 

" Ouil. But we both obey ; 

And here give up ourselves, in the full bent. 
To lay our service freely at your feet, 
To be commanded." 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

The work was thought to have been prompted by the 
solitude of a prison, and especially its last chapter, where 
reference is made to the exiled nobles of Muscovy. But 
we remembered, if that were necessary, that another and 
greater than Harley, one whose writings oft refer to Mus- 
covy, had through a like political tempest been to the 
Tower ; one, many of whose manuscripts are now to be 
found among the Harleian collection, and no less a person 
than Sir Francis Bacon. To the writer Crusoe indicates 
not merely reform, but chiefly new and basal purposes of 
operation. Referring in Sonnet 119 to his troubles, Bacon 
says : 

" What potions have I drunk of siren tears, 

Dislill'd from Ihnbecks foul as hell within, 

Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, 

Still losing when I saw myself to win ! 

What wretched errors hath my heart committed, 

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never ! 

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted 

In the distraction of this madding fever ! 

O benefit of ill ! now I find true 

That better is by evil still made better ; 

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, 

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. 

So I return rebuk'd to my content. 

And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. ' ' 

In the allegory of Crusoe we may indeed see represented 
the difficulties in reaching the island of truth, and of new be- 
ginnings thereon, and the work may not inaptly be regarded 
as a kind of nucleus of that which the New Atlantis is cap- 
stone. Bacon says : '* For an immense ocean encompasses 
the island of truth, and men have still to endure new 
dangers and scatterings from the winds of idles." Bat 
notwithstanding the oneness of stjle between Crusoe and 
the N"ew Atlantis, I still saw the seemingly insurmountable 
difficulty that ninety- three years had intervened between 
the death of Lord Bacon and the first publication of 
Crusoe, in 1719, Lord Bacon having died in 1626. From 
many data, however, I still had an impression, though 
one which I must say seemed as ridiculously absurd to 
myself as it doubtless now does to many of my readers. 
It was sufficient, however, to entice a nibbling investigation 
still, as it was not impossible for my impressions to be 
true. I felt conscious of this fact, that while the style, 
vocabulary, distinctive phraseology, and individualism of 



IN^TRODUCTIOIT. 29 

use, of two authors may approach each other very closely 
in certain directions, that still there could not be identity, 
and especially as to the wide range of subtle matter fringed 
in and through these forms. 

Again, there is a kind of physiognomy in a man's lan- 
guage as well as in his face. As individualism gives ges- 
ture both to body and features, so does it give style in 
language. The selection also of a man's words as well as 
their use discovers him, so also do rich gifts and wide 
mental acquirements. But it will be found that our in- 
vestigation stays but partially here for proofs. 

Being now launched instinctively, as it were, in the 
investigation, 1 purposed to know the truth, and early 
found that the language characteristics alluded to, and in 
a marked degree, ran through the entire body of the Bacon, 
Shakespeare, Burton, and Defoe literature ; whereupon I 
entered my investigations in other fields, and especially in 
that of philosophy, and everywhere fonnd a like oneness 
of individuality, and finally reached the island of truth, so 
to speak, and became satisfied ; and I purpose to lay my 
foundations so broad and deep in this investigation that 
the reader shall be satisfied, not merely that Lord Bacon 
was the author of Crusoe, but that he was the author of near- 
ly all of the so-called Defoe literature, little if any of which 
was issued under Defoe's hand, and which literature will 
be found to shed great light, not merely upon the life^ 
character, and attributed writings of Lord Bacon, but also 
upon the history of his times ; as well as to put a new face 
upon the Defoe period. 

When I became fully conscious of my discovery, and of 
the value that must result" by revival of interest in these 
admirable writings — these branches of a literature, of a 
philosophy — when restored to their true relations, I will 
not pretend to conceal from the reader the fact of an ex- 
isting desire on my part to claim my right as first discov- 
erer, or pioneer, in restoring them to their true place ; not 
merely in our literature, but in that great system of philos- 
ophy of which they form a part. And I then prepared 
and caused to be published in the leading daily journal at 
my then residence the notice following, a copy of which 
was likewise sent to the New York World, but not pub- 
lished, and due, doubtless, to the conceived inconsistency 
of the claim. The notice was in these words : 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

*' BACON, SHAKESPEARE, DEFOE. 

" By a somewhat careful examination of the Bacon- 
Shakespeare controversy during the past two years, I have 
been led into a branch of the field w^hich, so far as I am 
aware, has never beeii broached by any one. I will, there- 
fore, in due time put forth material which must demon- 
strate the fact that the renowned w^orks entitled Robinson 
Crusoe, the New Atlantis, and the Tempest, are products 
of one and the same mind. Laugh, therefore, as you will, 
but keep off the grounds. Rochester, Oct. 24, 1887. — 
J. E. Roe." 

Having impressions, though immature, as to methods 
and reasons for staying this literature from the public — 
..«gee, title Harley and Defoe— and having at the outset pos- 
sessed myself of many, and later of the entire works under 
review, I set myself in good earnest to my task, early de- 
termining, however, to make my investigation somewhat 
broader than as outlined in my notice, and we now invite 
the reader upon a pleasant hunting excursion into the 
fields of this literature. As we enter more definitely upon 
our subject, we would distinguish the idea that our notes 
are intended to be of equal importance with the text itself ; 
and if retained for future use they will make the reader 
himself a discoverer of points made in them ; and espe- 
cially as to language features falling under review as we 
advance. It was from the first apparent that the dates 
to the original manuscripts, if they bore dates — note how 
many of Bacon's attributed letters and writings do not 
— had been so changed as to conform them to the times 
when they were actually put forth. But we found that 
not only had the dates been changed, but that in some 
of them a hand other than the one in which they were 
originally couched was apparent, and that matter of such 
a nature had been interpolated into some of them as to 
thwart our theory ; for instance, in Defoe's History of 
the Devil, views expressed in Milton's Paradise Lost are 
brought under review, and which had not come into 
print until after the death of Lord Bacon. This could 
be explained consistently with the Baconian theory only 
by saying that Bacon, either as author or otherwise, was 
familiar with that manuscript before its publication. 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

This objection, if it shall prove to be one/ is at once neu- 
tralized when we come to consider that these writings 
have, in a measure been tampered with, and which fact 
of itself must throw doubts on Defoe's claims, or rather 
those made for him. Mr. Lee, Defoe's most compre- 
hensive biographer, is forced to admit that there is to 
be traced, in at least a portion of this literature, a hand 
evidently not Defoe's. That portion of the History of 
the Devil treated under the head of the Political History 
of the Devil, is, we judge, considerably garbled. But 
as a whole the work will be found to throw much 
light upon Lord Bacon's religious and other opinions, as 
well as upon his distinctive aims in anatomizing to the 
view the allurements of vice, as set out in his Defoe's 
Eoxana, Moll Flanders, and in his so-called Shakespeare 
plays, to the end that their true workings may be seen, 
reflected upon, and hence avoided. And thus are we re- 
minded of our Head-light, " For I have taken all knowledge 
to be my providence." 

It was a distinctive belief with Lord Bacon that protec- 
tion here, as everywhere, rests not in that mere innocency 
that springs from ignorance, but rests rather in knowledge, 
in the bonds of Proteus ; in other words, in art over 
nature. And so in his Meditationes Sacr^ (Works, vol. i., 
p. 67) he says : " To a man of a perverse and corrupt judg- 
ment all instruction or persuasion is fruitless and contempti- 
ble which begins not with discovery and laying open of 
the distemper and ill complexion of the mind which is to 
be recured ; as a plaster- is unseasonably applied before 
the wound be searched ; for men of corrupt understanding, 
that have lost all sound discerning of good and evil, come 
possessed with this prejudicate opinion, that they think 

^ In the works of Addison, Bacon will be found to be his own critic. 
His critic's chair of the De Aiigmentis he himself occupied. Ad- 
dison's works consist almost entirely of short essays of from one and 
a half to two and a half pages each, and many of them contain c:reat 
subtlety. As to the articles upon Milton, we will but say that they 
show the mind of an architect. They not only state what'in its vari- 
ous phases that author has wrought, but give his purposes therein. 
They note that author's change m his own style, in order to reach 
desired effects. This is all that we care to say at this time upon the 
subject, as we have not passed Milton's works under review in this 
investigation. 

' ;Nole the use in all of the works under review of the words 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

all honesty and goodness proceedeth out of a simplicity of 
manners and a kind of want of experience andunacquaint- 
ance with the affairs of the world. Therefore, except they 
may perceive that those things which are in their hearts, 
that is to say, their own corrupt principles and the deep- 
est reaches of their cunning and rottenness, to be thor- 
oughly sounded and known, to him that goes about^ to 
persuade with them, they make but a play of the words of 
wisdom.^ Therefore it behoveth him which aspireth to a 
goodness (not retired or particular to him, but a fructify- 
ing and begetting goodness which should draw on others) 
to know those points, which be called in the Revelation 
the deeps of Satan, that he may speak with authority and 
true insinuation.' Hence is the precept ' Try all things, 
and hold that which is good ;' which endureth a discern- 
ing election out of an examination whence nothing at all 
is excluded ; out of the same fountain ariseth that direc- 
tion, ' Be you as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.' 
There are neither teeth, nor stings, nor venom, nor 
wreaths and folds of serpents, which ought not to be all 
known, and, as far as examination doth lead, tried ; neither 
let any man here fear infection or pollution, for the sun 
entereth into sinks and is not defiled ; neither let any man 
think that herein he tempted God, for his diligence and 
generality of examination is commanded, and God is suffi- 
cient to preserve you immaculate and pure." * 

*' salve" and " plaster." In the play of The Tempest, Act ii., sc. 1, 
p. 48, we have : 

" Gon. My lord Sebastian, 

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, 
And time to speak it in ; you rub the sore, 
When you should bring the plaster." 

' Note throughout, and as here used, the expression "that goes 
about," In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 296, we have : 

" O, the recorders !— let me see one. — To withdraw with you : — 
Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would 
drive me into a toil ?" 

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 334, we have : 

" I have had a dream,— past the wit of man to say what dream it 
was : Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream." 

' Promus, 230. (A fool receiveth not the words of understand- 
ing, unless you shall say the things that are in his heart.) Is there 
not an apparent effort in the plays to disclose every phase of the 
human heart ? 

^ Promus, 1124. (She is chaste whom no one has solicited.) 

^ See Novum Organum, book i., aph. 120. 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

Let the foregoing be again carefully reread in connection 
with the following from Addison, vol. iii., p. 139. 

'' There is nothing which one regards so much with an 
eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash 
of folly. At the same time that one^ esteems the virtue, 
one is tempted to laugh at the simplicity which accom- 
panies it. When a man is made up wholly of the dove,^ 
without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, 
he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and 
very often discredits his best actions. The Cordeliers tell 
a story of their founder, St. Francis, that as he passed the 
streets in the dusk of the evening he disco^^ered a young 
fellow with a maid in a corner ; upon which the good 
man, say they, lifted up his hands to heaven with a secret 
thanksgiving, that there was still so much Christian charity 
in the world. The innocence of the saint made him mis- 
take the kiss of a lover for a salute of charity. I am 
heartily concerned when I see a virtuous man without a 
competent knowledge of the world ; and if there be any 
use of these my papers, it is this, that without representing 
vice under any false, alluring notions, the}^ give my reader 
an insight into the ways of men, and represent human 
nature in all its changeable colours. The man who has 
not been engaged in any of the follies of the world, or, as 
Shakespeare expresses it, ' hackneyed in the ways of men,' 
may here find a picture of its follies and extravagances. 
The virtuous and the innocent may know in speculation 
what they could never arrive at by practice, and by this 
means avoid the snare of the crafty, the corruptions of the 

^ As bearing upon tlie date of these writings, we from Addison, 
vol. vi,, p. 734, quote as follows : " Addison is with justice esteemed 
the best model for the easy, correct style of prose composition. He 
is, however, the last of the classic Enghsh authors who lias made 
use of one, a man, as pronouns ; as in these phrases, one sees, a man 
Qbserces, the latter entirely obsolete and the former nearly so. This 
phraseology prevails generally throughout his prose works." 

^ Concerning this use of the word " dove," appearing in the plays 
and throughout this literature, we from Bacon's Meditationes Sacras 
quote thus : " The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of the dove ; these 
servants of G-od were as the oxen of God treading out the corn and 
trampling the straw down under their feet ; but Jesus is the Lamb 
of God, without wrath or judgments ; all his miracles were con- 
summate about man's body, as his doctrine respected the soul of 
man," etc. (Works, vol. i., p. 67.) Promus, 41. (Censure extends 
pardon to ravens (but) bears hard on doves.) 

2 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

vicious, and the reasonings of the prejudiced. Their 
minds may be opened without being vitiated." 

Again, in the Advancement of Learning (AVorks, vol. i., 
p. 223), Bacon says : " For as the fable goeth of the basilisk,' 
that if he see you first, you die for it ; but if you see him 
first, he dieth ; so it is with deceits and evil arts ; which, 
if they be first espied, they lease their life ; but if they 
prevent, they endanger. So that we are much beholden 
to MachiaveP and others that write what men do, and not 
what they ought to do. For it is not possible to join ser- 
pentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men 
know exactly all the conditions of the serpent — his base- 
ness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, 
his envy and sting, and the rest — that is, all forms and 
natures of evil ; for without this, virtue lieth open and 
unfenced.^ Nay, an honest man can do no good upon 
those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help 
of the l^nowledge of evil." 

It may thus be seen to have been Bacon's opinion that 
as an educator, evil in its secret depths should be wrought 
to the view. In the plays distinctive forms or patterns of 

' This word basilisk will be found an oft- used word in the plays. 
And in Defoe's " History of the Devil " we at p. 510 have the ex- 
pression, "and, indeed, the poison of her eyes (basilisk-like) is 
very strong, and she has a strange influence upon me," 

2 Machiavel was a noted political writer of the Italian school, and 
is often referred to by Bacon in his works. And in Addison, vol. 
iv., p. 97, we have : " The politics which are most cultivated by this 
society of she-Machiavels relate chiefly to these two points, How 
to treat a lover and how to manage a husband." In the mentioned 
History of the Devil, p. 28y, we have : " Our old friend Machiavel 
outdid him in many things, and I may in the process of this work give 
an account of several of the sons of Adam, and some societies of them, 
too, who have outwitted the Devil ; nay, who have outshined the 
Devil ; and that, I think, may be called outshooting him in his own 
bow." We here have Bacon's expression, "out-shoot him in his 
own bow." In the plays we have such expressions as "the shes of 
Italy," "the crudest she alive." etc.; in the foregoing "she- 
Machiavels" and in sub, 852 of Bacon's Natural History we have, 
" Generally the hes in birds have the finest feathers," " the shes are 
smooth," " doves he and she." 

2 This use by Bacon of the word " fence," as applied to moral 
qualities, is distinctive and unusual. In Addison, vol. iii., p. 120, 
we have : " If modesty has so great an influence over our actions, 
and is in many cases so'impregnable a fence to virtue, what can more 
undermine morality than that pohteness which reigns among the 
unthinking part of mankind, and treats as unfashionable the most 



IKTRODUCTION". 35 

evil are thus vividly presented. As to evil being an edu- 
cator, see Sonnet 119, p. 28. 

In the play of Henry VI., part 3, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 396, 
Gloster, or Richard, as to the mentioned words " basilisk" 
and " Machiavel," is made to say : 

" Why. I can smile, and murder while I smile, 
And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart, 
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears. 
And frame my face' to all occasions. 
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall ; 
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk ; 
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor, 
Deceive more slily than Ulysses^ could, 
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy : 
I can add colours to the chameleon, 
Change shapes, with Proteus^, for advantages. 
And set the murderous Machiavel to school. 
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown ?" 



ingenious part of our behaviour ; which recommends impudence as 
good breeding, and keeps a man always in countenance not because 
he is innocent, but because it is shameless." And in the Anatomy of 
Melancholy, vol. ii. , p. 79, we have : 

*' Virtue and integrity are their own fence, 
Care not for envy or what comes from thence." 
Bacon speaks likewise of the eyelashes as a fence to the sight. 
And in the play of Henry VI. part 8, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 411, we have ; 
" Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas 
Which He hath given for fence impregnable, 
And with their helps only defend ourselves : 
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies." 
' Promus, 1041. (Although what prevents one from speaking 
truth with a laughing face?) Promus, 633. (To bear two faces 
under a hood.) Promus, 1023. (Keep your strength back, and 
display no eloquence in your face.) We find Bacon using the ex- 
pressions "the face of truth," " the face of error," "the outward 
face of peace," " the face of a school and not the world," He also 
says : " Men likewise in their folly expect to become acquainted with 
nature from her outward face and mask, and by external resemblances 
to detect internal properties." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 203.) Same 
Works, vol. iv., p. 253, he says : " But by the help and ministry of 
man a new face of bodies, another universe or theatre of things, comes 
into view." 

2 Promus, 463. (Ulysses sly in speech.) 841. (Ulysses doffed 
his rags. Of a sudden change of life from poverty to riches, from 
sad to merry.) In Addison, vol. iv,, p. 173, we have : " My paper 
among the republic of letters is the Ulysses his bow, in which every 
man of wit or learning may try his strength." 

3 Promus, 794. Chameleon, Proteus, Euripus. This word is 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

Distinct views held by Bacon as to vice may here be 
seen ; as well as the whole range of pnrpose to be accom- 
plished by the mentioned works and those of their class, 
Shakespeare included. Again, were the sex elements in 
the Defoe literature wrought into form, in order, in the 
first instance, to serve as primary steps or foundations for 
more subtle embodiment, either in the plays or elsewhere ? 

Bacon says these evil arts must in their subtlety be all 
known to him who would be the true teacher. Were 
these the methods in which he "obeyed the humour of 
the times and played the nurse with his own thoughts and 
those of others.^" From the preface of Moll Flanders we 
give the following : " But as this work is chiefly recom- 
mended to those who know how to read it, and how to 
make the good uses of it which the story all along recom- 
mends to them, so it is to be hoped that such readers will 
be much more pleased with the moral than the fable, with 
the application than with the relation, and with the end 
of the writer than with the life of the person written of." 
Again : ^' The advocates for the stage^ have in all ages 
made this the great argument to persuade people that 
their plays are useful, and that they ought to be allowed 
in the most civilized and in the most religious govern- 
ment ; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, 
and that by the most lively representations they fail not 

handled the same throughout this literature. Bacon says: "We 
must thus endeavour to bind nature as a Proteus ; for the various 
species of motions, duly discovered and methodically discriminated, 
may be re^^arded as the true bonds to tie this Proteus v^^ithal." 
(Works, vol. i., 409.) Note the use of this word in the A. D. B. 
Mask, in the Anatomy of Abuses, while in the Anatomy of Mel- 
ancholy, vol. i., p. 293, we have: "They are irregular, obscure, 
various, so infinite, Proteus himself is not so diverse ; you may as 
well make the moon a new coat as a true character of a melancholy 
man ; as soon find the motion of a bird in the air as the heart of a 
man, a melancholy man." 

^ In the De Augmentis, book ii., ch. 13, Bacon says : " Dramatic 
Poesy, which has the theatre for its world, would be of excellent 
use if well directed. For the stage is capable of no small influence 
both of discipline and of corruption. Now of corruptions in this 
kind we have enough ; but the discipline has in our times been plain- 
ly neglected. And though in modern states stage-playing is esteemed 
but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting, yet among the 
ancients it was used as a means of educating men's minds to vir- 
tue." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 316.) And see upon this subject Ad- 
dison, vol. iii., pp. 450-453. 



INTTRODUCTION". 37 

to recommend virtue and generous principles, and to dis- 
courage and expose all sorts of vice and corruption of 
maoners ; and were it true that they did so, and that they 
constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their acting 
on the theatre, much might be said in their favour." 

"Throughout the infinite variety of this book this 
fundamental is most strictly adhered to ; there is not a 
wicked action in any part of it bat is first or last rendered 
unhappy and unfortunate ; there is not a superlative vil- 
lain brought upon the stage' but either he is brought to 
an unhappy end or brought to be a penitent f there is 
not an ill^ thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in 
the relation, nor a virtuous just thing but it carries its 
praise along with it." 

And from the preface of Roxana, a work written to show 
prosperous vice, we have : "It is true she met with un- 

^ In his cliarge in the noted O^erbury case Bacon savs : " But to 
come to the present case : The great frame of justice (my lords) in 
this present action hath a vault, and it hatha stage ; a vault wherein 
these works of darkness were contrived ; and a stage, with steps, by 
which they were brought to light." (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 299.) 
Note in Defoe's History of the Devil, p. 316, where antiquity is brought 
upon the stage ; and at p. 453, where Mahomet is brought upon the 
stage. Note also the stage as mentioned in The Pilgrim's Progress, 
at pp. 304, 305, and wiiere it is said : " This stage was built to punish 
those upon, who, through timorousness or mistrust, shall be afraid 
to go farther on pilgrimage." 

"^ This was Bacon's word, and without synonyms, and it occurs 
throughout all this literature. See Bacon's Speech, already quoted. 
In " Measure for Measure," Act iv., sc. 2, p. 100, we have : " Shave 
the head and dye the beard ; and say, it was the desire of the penitent 
to be so bar'd before his death : You know the course is common." 
In " All's Well that Ends Well," Act iii., sc. 5, p. 335, w^e have : 

" Wild. The troop is past : Come, pilgrim, I will bring you 
Where you shall host : of enjoin'd penitents 
There's four or five, to great St. Jaques bound. 
Already at my house," 

^ Note throughout this use of the word "ill." Promus, 608. 
(Good dreams, ill waking.) 1223. You could not sleep for your 
ill lodging. 1072. (There is nothing so good that it may not 
be perverted by reporting it ill.) 974. He tliat hath an ill name 
is half hanged. 860. Fame's campus (an ill house kept. The 
field of famine.) In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 80, we have : 
"If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we 
expect between this and our journey's end?" And on p. 368 we 
have : " But so far as I could learn, he came to an ill end with his 
by-ends ; nor did I ever hear that any of his children were ever of 



38 INTRODUCTION-. 

expected success in all her wicked courses ; but even in 
the highest elevations of her prosperity she makes fre- 
quent acknowledgments that the pleasure of her wicked- 
ness was not worth the repentance ; and that all the satis- 
faction she had, all the joy in the view of her prosperity, 
no, nor all the wealth she rolled in, the gaiety of her ap- 
pearance, the equipages and the honours she was attended 
with, could quiet her mind, abate the reproaches of her 
conscience, or procure her an hour's sleep when just 
reflections kept her waking." ^ 

There seems to be an aim in these works to show that 
so long as there is desire remaining for a better life that 
the door of mercy is not closed. They in another view 
should be read in connection with Bacon's interpretation 
of the fable entitled " Dionysus, or Bacchus." See De 
Augmentis, Book II., ch. 13. 

Hence, those who have censured the works of Roxana 
and Moll Fhmders, by leason of the working of sex ele- 
ments to the view, mti,y see the design which, not Defoe, 
but their real author had in them. 

If it be objected that more freedom of expression is in- 
dulged in, in the non-attributed than in the attributed 
writings, two things should be carefully borne in mind : 
1. That the assuming of a mask of itself gave greater free- 
dom, and hence this was doubtless one, if not the chief 
reason, for assuming it. 2. The attributed writings are the 
ultimate and polished products of that which had gone 
through different stages on its way to completion. As the 
lusts of the flesh are in the mentioned works normally 
disclosed and somewhat anatomized, so is the lust for gold 
in his Defoe's " Captain Singleton," " Captain Jack," 
and others. 

In these works Bacon sought, through entertainment, 
to draw and fix the attention to the end, that, once secured, 
instruction might follow. In his article entitled " Of 
the Interpretation of Nature" (Works, vol. ii., p. 553), he 
says : "Now if any one deem that scrupulous care 

any esteem with any that truly feared God." In Avidison, vol. iii., 
p. 357, we have : ** Cheerfulness in an ill man deserves a harsher 
name than language can furnish us with, and is many degrees beyond 
what we commonly call folly or madness." 

_' As to the expression " kept her waking," Bacon, in Sub. 239 of 
his Natural History, says : " We see also that those that teach birds 
to sing do keep them waking to increase their attention." 



INTRODUCTIOIsr, 39 

with which we strive to prepare men's minds is uncalled 
for, that it is of the nature of parade, and got up for 
purposes of display, and should therefore desire to see 
denuded of all circumlocution and the scaffolding of pre- 
liminaries, a simple statement ; assuredly such an insinu- 
ation, were it founded in truth, would come well recom- 
mended to us. Would that it were as easy for us to con- 
quer difficulties and obstructions as to cast away idle 
pomp^ and false elaboration. But this we would have 
men believe, that it is not within due exploration of the 
route that we pursue our path in such a desert, especially 
having in hand such a theme ; as it were monstrous to 
lose by incompetent handling, and to leave exposed, as by 
an unnatural mother. Wherefore, duly meditating and 
contemplating the state both of nature and of mind, we 
find the avenues to men's understandings harder of access 
than to things themselves, and the labour of communi- 
cating not much lighter than of excogitating ; and, there- 
fore, which is almost a new feature in the intellectual 
world, we obey the humour of the time, and play the 
nurse, both with our own thoughts and those of others." 

But in what work now attributed to Lord Bacon did he, 
and as " almost a new feature in the intellectual world," 
obey the humour of the times, and play the nurse both 
with his own thoughts and those of others? And thus 
much here upon this thought, though, to use a Baconian 
expression, " more remains behind." 

While some of these writings, as Crusoe and a '^ New 
Voyage Round the World," were produced late in life, 
others, again, were probably produced prior to our head- 
light, the mentioned letter to Lord Burghley. The fol- 
lowing from that letter, " Lastly, I confess that I have as 
vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends ; 
for I have taken all knowledge to be my providence ; and 
if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one 
with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, 
the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions 

^ Note throughout the use of this word "pomp," and particu- 
larly in the plays. In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 284, we have : 

" No ; let the candid tongue lick absurd pomp, 
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 
Where thrift may follow fawning." 



40 INTRODUCTION". 

and impostures, hatli committed so many spoils ;* I hope 
I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclu- 
sions, and profitable inventions and discoveries, the best 
state of that providence," contains allusions, we think, to 
labor already expended upon that portion of the Defoe 
literature devoted to the weeding of the subjects of astrol- 
ogy, divination, and magic ; and as embraced in his Defoe's 
History of Duncan Campbell, A System of Magic, and the 
History and Reality of Apparitions. Much in Bacon's 
attributed writings may be found upon these subjects. 
Eead please in this connection, ch. 4 of Book III. and 
ch. 3 of Book IV. of the De Augmentis. He closes ch. 2 
of Book III. in these words : " And thus it is as lawful in 
natural theology^ to investigate the nature of evil spirits 
as the nature of poisons in pbysics or the nature of vice 
in morality. But this part of knowledge relating to angels 
and spirits, which we call the appendage to natural theol- 
ogy, cannot be noted for deficient, as having been handled 
by many ; but we may justly tax^ no small part of the 
writers in this way, either with levity, superstition, or 
fruitless speculation." 

The work entitled '' The Storm," put forth by Defoe in 
1704, while a prisoner in Newgate, is indeed a garbled 
piece of work, though its earliest pages, save an interline- 
ation or two, are unquestionably from Lord Bacon's pen, 
as may readily be seen by comparison, both as to subject- 
matter and style, with Bacon's " History of the Winds" 
and other like writings concerning the winds. Of the six 
divisions of the Great Instauration the De Augmentis 
constitutes the first, and which is but a rewriting of the 

^ In the New Atlantis Bacon says : " We have also houses of deceits 
of the senses ; where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, 
false apparitions, impostures, and illusions; and their fallacies." 
(Works, vol. i., p. 269.) 

'^ Note here Lord Bacon's use of the words " natural theology" in 
connection with his already alluded-to statement that he had com- 
pleted a host of divine works. 

^ Note this use of tlie word " tax" throughout this literature. In 
" Much Ado About Nothing," Act ii., sc. 8, p. 182, we have : 
" Balth. O ! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice 
To slander music any more than once." 

In "As You Like It," Act ii., sc. 7, p. 186. we have : 

" Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride, 
That can therein tax any private party ?" 



INTRODUCTIOl!^. 41 

Advancement of Learning in later years to fit it for its 
place in the system ; the Novum Organum is the second, 
and the Natural and Experimental History is the third. ^ 
This History, to represent the six days' works alluded to in 
the already quoted introduction to the New Atlantis, was 
divided by Lord Bacon into six sections — viz.. History of 
the Winds ; History of Density and Rarity ; History of 
Heavy and Light ; History of Sympathy and Antipathy ; 
History of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt ; and History of 
Life and Death. 

To Lord Bacon's mind the winds seem to have been the 
most inexplicable of all natural and material things. 
Hence his History of the Winds is placed first in the men- 
tioned Natural History, and which history, through his 
methods, was to expand, as he thought, by the additions 
of posterity, into that gigantic tree of experimental science 
and philosophy which was to be the utility of the ages. 
By his scheme of the New Atlantis he hoped to organize a 
central head that might guard, guide, and bear it forward, 
himself therein leaving the model by which its course was, 
in a measure, to be shaped. But it was too large for the 
race. Though its gains from it have been great, still they 
have not been at all in the lines of its methods, but rather 
by collateral nibblings therefrom. 

The mentioned work, " The Storm," opens in these 
words : 

"Though a system of exhalation, dilation, and exten- 
sion, things which the ancients founded the doctrine of 
winds upon, be not my direct business, yet it cannot but 
be needful to the present design to note, that the differ- 
ence in the opinions of the ancients about the nature and 
originaP of winds is a leading step to one assertion which 
1 have advanced in all that I have said with relation to 
winds — viz., that there seems to be more of God in the 

^ Concerning this Natural History, he, in the introductory matter 
to the Novum Organum, says : "For, in the first place, we begin 
with that species of natural history which is not so much calculated 
to amuse by the variety of its objects, or to offer immediate results 
by its experiments, as to throw a light upon the discovery of causes, 
and to present, as it were, its bosom as the first nurse of philosophy." 
(Works, vol. iii,, p. 340.) Note that his Natural History was to be 
the nurse, the very bosom, to philosophy. 

- This use of the word original will be found throughout this 
literature. In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 161, we have : " This fair is 



42 INTRODUCTION-. 

"wliole appearance than in any other part of operating 
nature. 

*' Nor do I tliink I need explain myself very far in this 
notion ; I allow the high original of nature to be the Great 
Author of all her actings, and by the strict reign of his 
providence is the continual and exact guide of her execu- 
tive power ; but still it is plain that in some of the prin- 
cipal parts of nature she is naked' to our eye. Things 
appear both in their causes and consequences, demonstra- 
tion gives its assistance, and finishes our further inquiries ; 
for we never inquire after God in those works of nature 
which, depending upon the course of things, are plain and 
demonstrative ; but where we find nature defective in her 
discovery, where we see effects but cannot reach their 
causes,^ there it is most just, and nature herself seems to 
direct us to it, to end the rational inquiry and resolve it 
into speculation ; nature plainly refers us beyond herself, 
to the mighty hand of infinite power, the author of nature 
and original of all causes. 

'* Among these Arcana of the sovereign (Economy, the 
winds are laid as far back as any. Tliose ancient men of 
genius who rifled nature by the torchlight of reason, even 
to her very nudities, have been run a-ground in this un- 
known channel ; the wind has blown out the candle of 
reason, and left them all in the dark." 

We omit here a paragraph which we think contains some 
interpolations, and continue : " This is what I quote them 
for, and this is all my argument demands ; the deepest 
search into the region of cause and consequence has 

no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient standing. I will 
show you the original of it." In Addison, vol. iii., p. 384, we have : 
" The first original of the drama was a religious worship consisting 
only of a chorus, which was nothing else but an hymn to a deity." 
In Henry IV., part 2, Act i,, sc. 2, p. 324, we have : 

" Fal. It hath its original from much grief ; from study, and per- 
turbation of the brain." 

^ We shall find that Bacon originally couched his philosophy under 
the cover of certain ancient fables as interpreted by himself in his 
" Wisdom of the Ancients," and among which Cupid served to ex- 
plain the origin of things ; and so concerning the word " naked," 
Bacon of Cupid says : " Most truly also is he represented as naked ; 
for all compounds (to one that considers them rightly) are masked 
and clothed ; and there is nothing properly naked, except the primary 
principles of things." (Bacon's Literary Works, vol. i., p. 731.) 

2 Promus, 227. (Upon wondering men begin to philosophize.) 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

found out just enough to leave the wisest philosopher in 
the dark, to bewilder his head and drown his understand- 
ing.' You raise a storm in nature by the very inquiry ; 
and at last, to be rid of you, she confesses the truth and 
tells you, ' It is not in me ; you must go home and ask my 
Father.' 

" Whether, then, it be the motion of air and what that 
air is, which as yet is undefined ; whether it is a dilation, 
a previous contraction, and then violent extension, as in 
gunpowder ; whether the motion is direct, circular, or 
oblique ; whether it be an exhalation repulsed by the middle 
region" and the antiperistatis of that part of the heavens 

^ Note tlirouo;hout this distinctive Baconian use of the word 
"drown." In a letter to the king in 1617 Bacon says: "Now, 
therefore, not to hold your majesty with many words, which do but 
drown matter, let me most humbly desire your majesty to take into 
your royal consideration that your state is at this time not only in 
good quiet and obedience, but in good aifection and disposition." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vi,, p. 233.) He says : " TJie droicnings of 
metals within other metals, in such sort as they can never rise again, 
is a thing of great profit." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 802.) He also 
says : " So we see when two lights do meet, the greater doth darken 
and drown the less." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 98.) See "The 
Pilgrim's Progress," pp. 72, 214, and 402. On page 72 we have : 

" Would'st thou divert thyself from melancholy? 
Would'st thou be pleased, yet be far from folly ? 
Would'st thou read riddles, and their explanation ? 
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation ?" etc. 

' Note Bacon's oft use of the words " middle place," " middle con- 
dition," and the distinctive views in his philosophy concerning the 
" middle region." Bacon says : " Who would not smile at Aristotle 
when he admireth the eternity and invariableness of the heavens, as 
there were not the like in the bowels of the earth ? Those be the 
confines and borders of these two kingdoms, where the continued 
alteration and incursion are. The superficcs and upper parts of the 
earth are full of varieties. The superfices and lower parts of the 
heavens, which we call the middle region of the air, is full of 
variety. There is much spirit in the one part, that cannot be brought 
into mass. There is much massy body in the other place, that can- 
not be refined to spirit. The common air is as the waste ground be- 
tween the borders." (Works, vol. i., p. 79.) A.s with Bacon's views 
the principles of motion within the human body are what they are in 
the outlying world, so is this term applied also to it. And in the 
Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 25, we have : ''Middle Region.'] 
Next in order is the middle region, or chest, which comprehends the 
vital faculties and parts ; which (as I said) is separated from the lower 
belly by the diaphragma, or midriff, which is a skin consisting of 
many nerves, membranes ; and, amongst other uses it hath, is the in- 



44 INTRODUCTION. 

which is set as a wall of brass to bind up the atmosphere 
and keep it within its proper compass for the functions 
of respiration, condensing and rarefying, without which 
nature would be all in confusion — whatever are their 
efficient causes, it is not to the immediate design. 

" It is apparent that God Almighty, whom the philoso- 
phers care as little as possible to have anything to do 
with, seems to have reserved this as one of those secrets 
in nature which should directly guide them to himself." 

And on the third page of the article we have : " AVhen 
therefore I say the philosophers do not care to concern 
God himself in the search after natural knowledge, I mean 
as it concerns natural knowledge merely as such ; for it is 
a natural cause they seek, from a general maxim, that all 
nature has its cause within itself ; it is true, it is the dark- 
est part of the search to trace the chain backward ; to be- 
gin at the consequence, and from thence hunt counter, as 
we may call it, to find out the cause ; it would be much 
easier if we could begin at the cause and trace it to all its 
consequences,, 

" I make no question the search would be equally to 
the advantage of science and the improvement of the 
world ; for without doubt there are some consequences of 
known causes which are not yet discovered, and J am as 
ready to believe there are yet in nature some terra incog- 
nita^ both as to cause and consequence too. 

*' In this search after causes, the philosopher, though 
he may at the same time be a very good Christian, cares 
not at all to meddle with his Maker ; the reason is plain : 
we may at any time resolve all things into infinite power, 
and we do allow that the finger of Infinite is the first 
mighty cause of nature herself ; but the treasury of immedi- 
ate cause is generally committed to nature ; and if at any 
time we are driven to look beyond her, it is because we 

strument of laughing." And iu vol. iv., p. 148, of jiddison, we have : 
" I look upon the play-house as a world within itself. They have 
lately furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, 
in order to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. . . . Their 
lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore ; their 
clouds are also better furbelowed and more voluminous ; not to men- 
tion a violent storm locked up in a great chest that is designed for 
the Tempest." 

^ Note at p. 21 of this work and for future reference the expres- 
sion " Terra Australis Incognita." 



INTRODUCTION^. 45 

are out of the way ; it is not because it is not in her, but 
because we cannot find it. 

*' Two men met in the middle of a great wood ; one was 
searching for a plant which grew in the wood, the other 
had lost himself in the wood and wanted to get out ; the 
latter rejoiced when, through the trees, he saw the open 
country ; but the other man's business was not to get out, 
but to find what he looked for ; yet this man no more 
undervalued the pleasantness of the champion country 
than the other. 

" Thus in nature the philosopher's business is not to 
look through nature, and come to the vast open field of 
infinite power ; his business is in the wood ; there grows 
the plant he looks for ; and it is there he must find it. 
Philosophy's aground if it is forced to any further in- 
quiry. The Christian begins just where the philosopher 
ends ; and when the inquirer turns his eyes up to heaven, 
farewell philosopher; it is a sign he can make nothing of 
it here." ' 

On pp. 4 and 5 we have : 

" And it seems a just authority for our search that 
some things are so placed in nature by a chain of causes 
and effects that upon a diligent search we may find out 
what we look for ; to search after what God has in his 
sovereignty thought fit to conceal may be criminal, and 
doubtless is so ; and the fruitlessness of the inquiry is gen- 
erally part of the punishment to a vain curiosity ; but to 
search after what our Maker has not hid, only covered 
with a thin veil of natural obscurity, and which upon our 
search is plain to be read, seems to be justified by the very 
nature of the thing, and the possibility of the demonstra- 
tion is an argument to prove the lawfulness of the inquiry. 

^ To show that these views were distinctly held by Lord Bacon, we 
need but quote the first words of the last chapter of his De Aiigmentis. 
He says : " Seeing now, most excellent King, that my little bark, such 
as it is, has sailed round the whole circumference of the old and new 
world of sciences (with what success and fortune it is for posterity 
to decide), what remains but that, having at length finislied my 
course, I should pay my vows ? But there still remains Sacred or 
Inspired Divinity ; whereof, however, if I proceed to treat, I shall 
step out of the bark of human reason and enter into the ship of the 
church : which is only able by the Divine compass to rightly direct 
its course. Neither will the stars of philosophy, which have hitherto 
so nobly shone upon us, any longer supply their light." (Phil. 
Works, vol. v., p. 111.) 



46 INTRODUCTION^". 

*'The design of this digression is, in short, that as 
where nature is plain to be searched into and demonstra- 
tion easy, the philosopher is allowed to seek for it ; so 
where G-od has, as it were, laid his hand upon any place, 
and nature presents us with an universal blank, we are 
therein led as naturally to recognize the infinite wisdom 
and power of the God of nature as David was in the texts 
before ((uoted. 

" And this is the case here ; the winds are some of 
those inscrutables* of nature in which human search has 
not yet been able to arrive at any demonstration." 

On pp. 5 and 6 we have : 

" But that, therefore, all the causes of wind are from 
the influences of the sun^ upon vaporous matter first ex- 
haled, which being dilated are obliged to possess them- 
selves of more space than before, and consequently make 
the particles fly before them ; this does not seem to be a 
sufficient demonstration of wind ; for this, to my weak 
apprehension, would rather make a blow like gunpowder 
than a rushing forward ; at best, this is indeed a probable 
conjecture, but admits not of demonstration equal to other 
phenomena in nature. 

" And this is all I am upon — viz., that this case has 
not equal proofs of the natural causes of it that we meet 
with in other cases : the Scripture seems to confirm this 
when it says, in one place, ' He holds the wind in his 
hand ;' as if he should mean other things are left to the 
common discoveries of natural inquiry, but this is a thing 
he holds in his own hand, and has concealed it from the 
search of the most diligent and piercing understanding ; 
this is farther confirmed by the words of our Saviour : 
* The wind blows where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh ;' it is 
plainly expressed to signify that the causes of the wind 
are not equally discovered by natural inquiry as the rest 
of nature is. 

**If I would carry this matter on, and travel into the 

^^ ] Note in Bacon's attributed writings his oft use of this word 
" inscrutable," and particularly as applied to the heart of kings. 

2 Bacon, in his "History of the Winds," says: " Next to the 
natural_ motion of the air, before inquiring concerning the sun, 
which is the principal parent of the winds, we must observe whether 
anything be due to the moon and other stars, upon clear experimental 
evidence." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 167.) 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

seas and mountains of America, where the mansones, the 
trade-winds, the sea breezes, and such winds as we have 
little knowledge of are more common, it would yet more 
plainly appear ' that we hear the sound, but know not 
from whence they come.' 

" Nor is the cause of their motion parallel to the surface 
of the earth a less mystery than their real original, or 
the difiSculty of their generation ;^ and though some people 
have been forward to prove the gravity of the particles 
must cause the motion to be oblique, it is plain it must 
be very little so, or else navigation would be impracticable, 
and in extraordinary cases, where the pressure above is 
perpendicular, it has been fatal to ships, houses, etc., and 
would have terrible effects in the world, if it should more 
frequently be so. 

*^ From this I draw only this conclusion, that the winds 
are a part of the works of God by nature, in which he has 
been pleased to communicate less of demonstration to us 
than in other cases ; that the particulars more directly 
lead us to speculations, and refer us to infinite power 
more than the other parts of nature do." 

To the reader of the Baconian philosophy I need not 
say that this is his style, that these were his thoughts. 
And so throughout all of the writings under review do we 
find the subject of the winds emphasized and in the sense 
here set forth. 

The field of final causes here touched upon was marked 
off by Lord Bacon from the realm of philosophy as fully 
as by Herbert Spencer, his in many respects great disciple. 
Spencer's field of the "Unknowable" is Bacon's " Vir- 
gin Consecrated to God." Bacon says: "The practical 
doctrine of nature we likewise necessarily divide into two 
parts corresponding to those of speculative ; for physics 
or the inquiry of efficient and material causes produces 
mechanics ; and metaphysics, the inquiry of forms, pro- 
duces magic f whilst the inquiry of final causes is a barren 

? This word "generation" as applied to wind is Baconian. He 
says : " The generation of the winds are not only original,^ but also 
accidental ; that is, arising from the compressions, percussions, and 
repercussions of the air. " (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 141.) 

2 In the play of The Tempest, Act v., sc. 1, p. 98, we have : 

" But this rough magic 
I here abjure : and, when 1 have requir'd • 



4S INTKOlHCriOX. 

tUiii.a: or as a vii\aiu ooiisocrated to God." (Do Aiigmcntis, 
eh. 5, Book III.) And please see Xovum On:rHiuim, Aph. 
SO, Book I. 

As to nuigic. Bacon in sub. 03 of his Natural History 
savs : " For this writing of our Sylva Sylvarum is, to 
speak properly, not natural history, but a high kind of 
natural niagio. For it is not a description only of nature, 
but a breaking of nature into groat and strange works.'' 
As to his use of the word magic, lie says : '" If, then, I have 
set down that part of metaj^hysics which treats of forms as 
deficient, it must follow that I do the like of natural 
magic, which has relation thereunto. But I must here stip- 
ulate that magic, which has long been used in a bad sense, 
be again restored to its ancient and honorable meaning. 
For "among the Persians magic was taken for a sublime 
wisdom, and the knowledge of the universal consents of 
things : and so the three kings who came from the east to 
worship Christ were called by the name of Magi. I how- 
ever understand it as the science which applies the knowl- 
edge of hidden forms to the production of wonderful opera- 
tions ; and by uniting (as they sav) actives Avith passives, 
displays the wonderful works of nature." (De Augmentis, 
ch. 5, Book III.) Let the Defoe work on magic be called 
into relation with tliese thoughts, and be read in connec- 
tion with what is found in the De Augmentis upon the 
subject. 

But to return. Throughout this literature the word 
*' wind " is made to apply subjectively to mind or its pas- 
sions, as well as to material change in the outlying world. ^ 
In the Advancement of Learning (Works, vol. i., p. v'^o). 
Bacon says : " For as the ancient politicians in populous 

Some heavenlv music, (which even now I do,) 
To work mine end upon their senses, that 
This airy charm is for. I'll break my staff, 
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth*. 
And. deeper than did ever plummet sound. 
I 11 drown my bocfk." 
Note in the play of Hamlet. Act iii.. sc. *3. p. 008. the use of the 
wonis " natural* magic." And in the Winters Tale, Act v.. sc. 3, 
p. 139, we luive : 

" Leon. [Embracing her.^ O. she's -uarm ! 
If this Ix^ magic, let it be an art 
Lawful as eating." 

' Please see foot-note 3. p. 20. * 



I]NTI10DUCTI0N. 49 

Stiitcs were wont to compare the people to tlie sea and the 
orators to tlie winds ; hecause as the sea would of itself be 
calm and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it, 
80 the people would be peaceable and tractable, if the sedi- 
tious orators did not set them in working and agitation ; 
so it may be fitly said, that the mind in the nature thereof 
would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, 
did not ])ut it into tumult and perturbation." * 

In the Baconian philosophy wind, in other words, air 
in motion, is the potent influence within as without the 
animal body. In his History of the Winds he says : 
" Winds in the bodies of men and animals excellently corre- 
spond to the winds of the greater w^orld. For they are 
both generated from moisture^ and alternate with it, as 
winds and rains do ; they are likewise dissipated and made 
to perspire by a strong heat." ^ And again : "Bellows 
are with men as the bags of yEolus,* whence a man may 
draw wind, according to the proportion of man." (Phil. 
Works, vol. v., p. 105.) And on p. 160 he says : " The 
poets have feigned that the kingdom of ^olus was situated 

' Note in tlie plays tlie use of this great Baconian word perturba- 
tion. In Macbeth, Act v., sc. 1, p. 827, we have : 

'' iJoct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the 
benefit of sleep, and do the ell'ects of watching." 

In Henry IV., part 2, Act 1.. sc. 2, p. 324, we have: 

'' Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and 
perturbation of the brain." 

And see Act iv.. sc. 4, p. 413. 

'^ Note in the Anatomy of Melancholy the oft use of the terms 
"the moisture" and "the over-moisture of the brain" as bearing 
upon the question of its disease. • 

^ As he makes the words "moisture" and "vapour" apply to 
mental operations, we quote his interesting statement as to vapors 
thus: "This, indeed, is ceitain, that winds are either natives or 
strangers ; for they are, as it were, traders in vapours, which they 
collect into clouds for importation or exportation to and from differ- 
ent countries, receiving winds in return by way of exchange." (Phil. 
Works, vol. v., p. 159.) 

^ Note here the word ^olus. In Addison, vol. ii., p. 239, we 
have : " The rest that took up the same space, and made the same 
figure as the bags that were really tilled with money, had been blown 
up with air, and called into my memory the bags full of wind, which 
Homer tells us his hero received as a present from ^olus." Later 
we shall call sharply under review this word as used here, as used 
in the "Anatomy of Abuses" and in Defoe's ".Jure Divino." 
These heathen gods in the works last mentioned will be found suc- 
cinctly detined. 



50 INTRODUCTION. 

in subterranean dens and caverns, where the winds were 
imprisoned, and whence they were occasionally let loose."* 
The preface itself to the mentioned work is in these 
words : " To men the winds are as wings. For by them 
men are borne and fly, not indeed through the air, but 
over the sea ; a vast gate of commerce is opened, and the 
whole world is rendered accessible. To the earth, which 
is the seat and habitation of men, they serve for brooms, 
sweeping and cleansing both it and the air itself. Yet they 
damage the character of the sea, which would otherwise 
be calm and harmless ; and in other respects they are 
productive of mischief. Without any human agency they 
cause strong and violent motion ; whence they are as hired 
servants to drive ships and turn mills, and may, if human 
industry fail not, be employed for many other purposes. 
The nature of the winds is generally ranked among the 
things mysterious and concealed ; and no wonder, when 
the power and nature of the air, which the winds attend 
and serve (as represented by the poets in the relation of 
kohls'" to Juno), is entirely unknown. They are not 

' Bacon entertained distinctive views as to subterranean winds. 
both as expressed in his attributed writings and in the Anatomy of 
Melancholy. From "Othello," Act iv., sc. 2, p. 525, upon this 
point we give the following : 

" What committed ? 
Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks ; 
The bawdy wind, that kisses ail it meets, 
Is hush'd "within the hollow mine of earth, 
And will not hear it : what committed ? — 
Impudent strumpet \\' 

And in Henry VI., part 2, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 238, we have : 

" What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gusts, 
And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves. 
And bid them blow toward England's blessed shore. 
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock ? 
Yet ^olus would not be a murderer. 
But left that hateful office unto thee ; 
The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me, 
Knowing that thou would'st have me drown'd on shore, 
With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness." 

^ From the mentioned work entitled " The Storm," we, p. 283, as to 
jEoIus, quote as follows : 

" The billows swell, and the hatighty Neptune raves 
The winds insulting o'er the impetuous waves. 



INTRODUCTION. 51 

primary creatures, nor among the works of the six days ; 
as neither are the other meteors actually, but produced 
according to the order of creation." 

Note here and for future reference the mentioned word 
^ohis. ISTote likewise in the plays and elsewhere in this 
literature the word weather,' as applied to mental states 
or to the gusts and operations of the passions, and the 
words mist, vapors, and like words to mental operations. 
We have in the plays " the scolding wind," '^ the posting 
wind," ''the wanton wind," " the bawdy wind, that kisses 
all it meets," and " Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to 
clay, may stop a hole to keep the wind away." And from 
the word air we have the word Ariel, the sprightly serving 
spirit of The Tempest. The words "aired," "airless," 
" air-drawn," and others are said to have been first used 
in the plays, which have added several thousand words to 
our native tongue. Bacon's tentative processes with words 
and expressions will be later called under review. 

In Macbeth, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 307, we, concerning the 
wind, have : 

" Mach. I conjure you, by that which you profess, 
(Howe'er you come to know it,) answer me : 
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight 
Against the churches ; though the yesty waves 
Confound and swallow navigation up ; 
Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down ; 
Though castles topple on their warders' heads ; 
Though palaces, and pyramids, do slope 
Their heads to their foundations ; though the treasure 
Of nature's germins tumble all together. 
Even till destruction sicken, answer me 
To w^hat I ask you," 

And in Romeo and Juliet, Act iii., sc. 5, p. 121, we 
have : 

" How now ! a conduit, girl ? what ! still in tears ? 
Evermore showering ? In one little body 

Thetis incensed, rises with angry frown, 
And once more threatens all the world to drown, 
And owns no Power but England's and her own. 
Yet the ^olian God dares vent his rage ; 
And ev'n the Sovereign of the seas engage." 

^ In The Tempest, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 48, we have : 

" Qon. It is foul weather in us all, good sir. 
When you are cloudy." 



52 INTRODUCTION. 

Tliou countcrfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind ; 

For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, 

Do ebb aud flow with tears ; the bark thy body is, 

Sailing in this salt flood ; the winds, thy sighs ; 

Who, — raging with thy tears, and they with them, — 

Without a sudden calm, will overset 

Thy tempest-tossed body." 

We now move to another point connected with the fore- 
going. Bacon believed in an irrational, as well as in the 
rational soul, the rational soul coming from the breath of the 
Infinite and the irrational soul from the spirits of the ele- 
ments, or, as in some places stated by him, " the wombs of 
the elements." This sensitive, irrational, or produced 
soul he believed to be but an instrument of the rational 
one or spirit. 

And so we here and for future reference call attention 
to Bacon's subtle and distinctive belief as to the sj^irit, in 
its connection with the lifeless spirits and the vital spirits 
within the human body. The words " lifeless spirits" he 
applies to all inorganic motions. The words-the " vital 
spirits" to organic motions. With the latter term he 
includes the living spirit. In his " History of Life and 
Death" he says : " The lifeless spirits are nearly of the 
same substance as the air ; the vital spirits more akin to 
the substance of flame." ^ Concerning them all he says : 

" We should know therefore that there are diffused in 
the substance of every part of the human body, as the 
flesh, bones, members, organs, and the like, during life- 
time, spirits of the same kind as those which exist in the 
same things — flesh, bones, members, and the rest — when 
separated and dead ; such likewise as remain in the corpse. 
But the living spirit, though it governs them and has some 
agreement with them, is very different from them, being 
integral and self-subsisting. But between the lifeless and 

^ It will be found that the same subtle views as to these spirits are 
held throughout the Anatomy of Melancholy. From vol. i., p. 21, 
we quote : "Of these spirits there be three kinds, according to the 
three principal parts, brain, heart, ^u^e?-— natural, vital, animal. 
The natural are begotten in the liver, and thence dispersed through 
the veins to perform those natural actions. The tital spirits are 
made in the heart of the natural, which, by the arteries, are trans- 
ported to all the other parts ; if these spirits cease, then life ceaseth, 
as in a syncope or swooning. The animal spirits, formed of the 
vital, brought up to the brain, and diffused by the nerves to the sub- 
ordinate members, give sense and motion to them all." 



INTRODUCTION. 63 

vital spirits there are two special differences : the one, 
that the lifeless spirits are not continued in themselves, 
but are, as it were, cut off and surrounded by the grosser 
body which intercepts them, as air is mixed up in snow or 
froth. But all the vital spirit is contained in itself, by 
certain channels through which it passes, without being 
totally intercepted. And this spirit likewise is of two 
kinds' : the one merely branched, and permeating through 
small, thread-like channels ; the other having a cell like- 
wise, so that it is not only continued in itself, but also 
collected in a considerable quantity, according to the pro- 
portion of the body, in some hollow space ; and in this 
cell is the fountain of the streamlets which diverge from 
tlience. This cell is chiefly in the ventrick'S of the brain, 
which in the lower animals are narrow ; so that the spirits 
seem rather to be diffused over the body than seated in 
cells, as may be seen in serpents, eels, and flies, the differ- 
ent parts whereof continue to move long after they are cut 
to pieces. So likewise birds quiver for some time after 
their heads are cut off, because they have small heads 
with small cells ; but the nobler animals, and men most 
of all, have larger ventricles. The other difference between 
the spirits is, that the vital spirit has in it a degree of 
inflammation,^ and is like a breath compounded of _ flame 
and air, as the juices of animals contain both oil and 
water." (Phil. Works, vol. 5, p. 323.) 

Again : " But air is a permanent body that is not dis- 
solved ; for though new air be created out of watery moist- 
ure, yet the old air still remains ; whence comes that sur- 
charge of the air mentioned in the title concerning the 

' At this juncture we would make the followiDg point. This 
word "inflammation," and for the use of which Addison is, in a 
foot-note, criticised, is distinctly Baconian. Bacon, as we may here 
see, had his distinctive reason for using it. And he often makes use 
of the word ''flame" as applied to the passions. And so through- 
out the plays note the use of the word " flame" as applied to love, 
as well as to other passions of the mind. In Hamlet, Act iv., sc. 7, 
p. 341, we have : 

" There lives within the very flame of love 
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it." 

And in Act iii., sc. 4, p. 309, we have : 

" O, gentle son ! 
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 
Sprinkle cool patience." 



54 INTRODUCTION. 

winds.* But the spirit partakes of both natures, both of 
flame and air ; as likewise its nourishers are oil, which is 
homogeneous to flame, and air, which is homogeneous to 
water. For the spirit is not nourished by the oily part 
alone, nor by the watery part alone, but by bofch together ; 
and though air does not sort'' well with flame nor oil with 
water, yet in a mixed body they agree well enough. Like- 
wise the spirit gets from air its easy and delicate impres- 
sions and receptions,' but from flame its noble* and power- 
ful motions and activity' ' (p. 335). 

Again : " It would be an error to suppose that the living 
spirit, like flame, is perpetually generated and extinguished, 
and is of no sensible duration. For even flame does this 
not of its own nature, but because it lives among things 
hostile to it, since flame within flame is durable.* But the 
living spirit lives among things that are friendly and obse- 
quious. Therefore, whereas flame is momentary and air a 

All unliealthful influences upon mind, not particularized, are by 
Bacon cafled "distempers," and so note the use of the word 
throughout aU this literature. 

These subtle Baconian views as to the vital and lifeless spirits are 
touched upon in the play of Henry IV., part 2, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 405, 
where we have "and then the vital commoners, and inland petty 
spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart," etc. 

^ In the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 309, we have : 
" Rumbling in the guts is caused from wind, and wind from ill con- 
coction, weakness of natural heat, or a distempered heat and cold ; 
palpitation of the heart, from vapours ; heaviness and aching, from 
the same cause. That the belly is hard, wind is a cause, and of that 
leaping in many pants." Note here also the use of the word 
"vapours." The Anatomy of Melancholy, the Anatomy of 
Abuses, and the A. D. B. Mask are so evidently Bacon's that we 
need devote comparatively little time to them. 

^ Note this use of this word "sort" throughout, and particu- 
larly in the plays. In Much Ado About Nothing, Act v., sc. 4, p. 
247, we have : 

" Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well." 

In Henry V., Act iv., sc. 1, p. 534, we have : 

" Ki7ig. It sorts well with your fierceness." 

3 And hence Ariel of " The Tempest." 

•* Note the word "noble" throughout this literature, and particu- 
larly in the works of Addison. It was Bacon's distinguishing word, 
as " duty" was Wellington's and " glory" Napoleon^'s, 

5 We shall later find that Bacon believed the heavenly bodies to be 
self -sustained fire. 



INTRODUCTION. 55 

fixed substance, the living spirit partakes of the nature of 
both" (p. 315). 

Again : " But the fabric of the parts is the organ of the 
spirit, as the spirit is the organ of the reasonable soul,* 
which is incorporeal and divine" (p. 335). 

Again : " The actions or functions of the individual 
members follow the nature of the members themselves, 
as attraction, retention, digestion, assimilation, separation, 
excretion, perspiration, and even the sense itself, depends 
upon the properties of the several organs, as the stomach, 
liver, heart, spleen, gall, brain, eye, ear, and the rest" 
(p. 324). 

With Bacon the principles of motion, both organic and 
inorganic, are in the human body what they are in the 
outlying world, ^ though subject to the " living spirit." 

The subtle motions that govern matter beach also upon 
mind,' and hence Bacon has not one set of words to apply 
to mental and another set to material things ; and so of all 
writers his words are the most definite, as they follow most 
closely the order of nature. 

In order that thoughts found in the plays and elsewhere 
may be called into relation with the mentioned article, we 
further quote from it as follows: "With regard to the 
quieting of the violence of the spirits, I will speak of it 
presently when I come to inquire concerning their mo- 
tion" * (p. 276). And " so much, then, for the motion of 
the spirits by the affections of the mind " (p. 280). 

Again : " The nature of the spirits is, as it were, the 

^ In the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. 2, p. 52, we have : "The 
soul is an alien to the body, a nightingale to the air, a swallow in an 
house, and Ganymede in heaven, an elephant in Rome, a phenix in-^ 
India ; and such things commonly please us best which are most 
strange and come furthest off." 

* Bacon had a definite reason for calling these forces or activities 
below consciousness spirits, as he believed them to be instincts, as it 
were, and thus a species of intelligence, though mysterious to us, as 
will be seen in connection with his views upon perception, later 
touched upon. 

^ Though the living spirit is in the light of reason, whatever 
affects it are springs of its motion, and apparent good often de- 
ceives it. 

* Concerning the " motions of the spirit," we, from Addison, vol. 
iii., p. 113, quote as follows : " A leap into the sea or into any creek 
of salt water very often gives a new motion to the spirits, and a 
new turn to the blood ; for which reason we prescribe it in distempers 
which no other medicine will reach." 



56 INTRODUCTION". 

master \ylieel which turns the other wheels in the body of 
men ; and therefore in the intention of longevity it ought 
to stand lirsf' (p. 330). 

Again : "' With regard to the brain, where the court 
and university of the animal spirits is held/ the former 
inquiries concerning opium, niter, and their subordinates, 
and means for inducing quiet sleep, have some relation 
thereto" (p. 299). 

Again : " The stomach (which is the master of the 
house, as they say, upon whose strength all the other 
digestions depend) should be so fortified, and strengthened 
as to be moderately warm ; firm, not loose ; clean, and 
not charged with oppressive humours ; and yet (seeing it 
is supported by itself rather than by the veins) never abso- 
lutely empty or fasting ; lastly, it should be kept in good 
appetite, for appetite sharpens digestion" (p. 294). 

Again : '' Although a good digestion jierformed by the 

^ In " Coriolanus," Act i., sc, 1, p. 157, we, as to this court of 
the spirits, have : 

" Afeu. Note me this, ^ood friend ; 

Your most grave belly was deliberate, 
Not rash, like his accusers, and thus answer'd : 
' True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he, 
' That I receive the general food at first, 
Which you do live upon ; and fit it is. 
Because I am the store-house and the shop 
Of the whole body : but, if you do remember, 
I send it through the livers of your blood 
Even to the court, the heart ; to th' seat o' the brain ; 
And, through the cranks and otfices of man. 
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins 
From me receive that natural competency 
Whereby they live. ' ' 

Concerning the vital organs and the belly or middle region, we, 
in the Anatomy of ^Melancholy, vol, i., p. 23, have : " Of the 7wble 
there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and 
whom they serve— brai'ii, heart, liver ; according to whose site, 
three regions, or a three-fold division is made of'the whole body ; 
as, first, of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, and 
brain itself, which by his nerves gives sense and motion to the 
rest, and is (as it were) a privy counsellor, and chancellor, to the 
heart. The second region is the chest, or middle beJly, in which 
the heart as king keeps his court, and by his arteries communicate 
life to the whole body. The third region is the lower helly, in which 
the liver resides as a legate a latere, With the rest of those natural 
organs serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excre- 
ments." 



INTRODUCTION. 57 

internal parts is the principal thing for perfect alimenta- 
tion, yet the actions of the exterior parts should also con- 
cur. And as the internal faculty sends forth and extrudes 
the nourishment, so outward faculties should attract and 
seize it" (p. 300). 

Again : "■ Sleep after dinner, wherein vapours' are un- 
pleasing (as being only the first dews of food) rise to the 
head, is good for the spirits, but bad and prejudicial to all 
other things that relate to the health" (p. 278). 

Again : " For as motion attenuates and rarefies the 
spirit and stimulates and intensifies the heat thereof, so, 
on the other hand, sleep pacifies and subdues its motion and 
discursive action. For though sleep strengthens and 
furthers the actions of the parts and the non-vital spirits 
and all motion toward the circumference of the body, yet 
it greatly calms and lulls the proper motion of the living 
spirit" (p. 313). 

Again : " Melting is the work of the spirits alone, and 
that only when they are excited by heat ; for then the 
spirits expanding themselves, and yet not going forth, in- 
sinuate and spread themselves among the grosser parts, 
and make them soft and molten, as appears in metals and 
wax : for metals and other tenacious bodies are apt to re- 
strain the spirit and prevent it from rushing forth when 
excited" (p. 322). 

Again : " Yivification, therefore, always takes place in a 
matter tenacious and viscous, but at the same time soft 
and yielding, that there may be at once both a detention 
of the spirit and a gentle yielding of the parts, as the 
spirit moulds them. And this appears in the matter of 
all things, as well vegetable as animal, whether generated 
from putrefaction'^ or from seed ; for there is manifest in 
them all a matter hard to break through, but easy to 
yield." 

^ Note throughout the application of the word " vapour" to men- 
tal states, as well as to material conditions. As to material condi- 
tions, we, in " Measure for Measure," Act iv., sc. 2, p. 92, have : 
" I shall attend your leisure ; but make haste ; 
The vaporous night approaches." 
See also Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 358. 

^ In sub. 835 of Bacon's Natural History he says : " And we see 
that vivification (whereof putrefaction is the bastard brother) is 
effected by such soft heats as the hatching of eggs, the heat of the 
womb," etc. 



58 INTRODUCTION. 

Again : " Therefore there appear plainly to be three 
porches^ of death ; namely, destitution of the spirit, in the 
motion, refrigeration, and nourishment thereof" (p. 315). 
And see this word porches as used in connection with the 
subject of death on pp. 222 and 311. 

Again : "■ To comfort the heart^ cooling odours are 
better than hot" (p. 297). 

Again : " Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants, entombed 
and preserved for ever in amber, a more than royal tomb, 
though they are tender substances and easily dissipated" 
(p. 320). 

Again : " The polished surface likewise and closeness of 
the body (which does not permit the vapour of moisture 
to enter through the pores) accidentally dries it by ex- 
posure to the air ; as is seen in precious stones, looking- 
glasses, and sword blades, which, if you breathe upon 
them, appear at first covered with vapour, though it soon 
disperses, like a little cloud" (p. 228). 

Again : ^' Joy suppressed and sparingly communicated 
comforts the spirits more than joy indulged and published" 
(p. 279). 

Again : " There are two things in the body — namely, 
spirits and parts f to both of which the way by nutrition 
is long ; but the way to the spirits by vapours'* or the 

^ See this unusual use of the word " porcli" in Hamlet, Act i., sc. 
5, p. 233, where we have: 

" Sleeping within mine orchard. 
My custom always in the afternoon, 
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, 
With juice of cursed hebenon in a phial, 
And in the porches of mine ear did pour 
The leperous distilment ;" etc. 

* Concerning the expression "comfort the heart," we, from the 
Anatomy of Abuses, p. 201, quote as follows : " I grant music is a 
good gift of God, and that it delighteth both man and beast, reviv- 
eth the spirits, comforteth the heart, and maketh it readier to serve 
God," etc. And in Hamlet, Act i., sc, 2, p. 210, we have : 

" And, we beseach you, bend you to remain 
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye. 
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son." 

^ Note a kind of distinctive use by Bacon of this word "part," 
and found in every phase of these writings. 

"* In Addison, vol. ii., p. 238, we have: "She appeared, indeed, 
infinitely timorous in all her behaviour ; and whether it was from 



INTRODUCTION". 69 

affections, and to the parts by emollients, is short" (p. 
332). 

Again : '* Of all odours I recommend (as I have inti- 
mated before) those of plants growing and not gathered, 
and taken in the open air ; such as those of violets, pinks, 
and gilly- flowers, bean-blossoms, lime-flowers, the dust or 
flowers of vines, clary, the yellow wall-flower, musk roses 
(for other roses when growing give out little smell), straw- 
berry plants, especially when dying ; sweet-brier, especially 
in early spring ; wild mint, and lavender flowers ; and in 
hot countries, oranges, citrons, myrtle, and laurel. We 
ought therefore to walk or sit among the breaths of these 
plants'' (p. 298). 

Again : '' The medicines that make opiates are, first of 
all, saffron^ and its flowers ; then Indian leaf, ambergris, a 
preparation of coriander seed, amomum and pseudamo- 
mum, lignum Rhodium, orange-flower water, or better 
still, the infusion of fresh orange-flowers in oil of almond, 
nutmegs pricked full of holes and soaked in rose-waters" 
(p. 272). 

Again : " The best simples for the stomach are rose- 
mary, elecampane, mastich, wormwood, sage, and mint" ^ 
(p. 295). 

the delicacy of her constitution or that she was troubled with 
vapours, as I was afterward told by one who I found was none of 
her well-wishers, she changed colour and startled at every thing she 
heard." 

^ The word " saffron" is an oft-used word by Bacon, and found in all 
of these writings. In " The Tempest, " Act iv,, sc. 1, p. 82, we 
have : 

" Ger. Hail, many- coloured messenger, that ne'er 

Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter ; 

Who, with thy saffron wings upon my flowers 

Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers ; 

And with each end of thy bhie bow dost crown 

My bosky acres, and my uushrubb'd down. 

Rich scarf to my proud earth;— why hath thy queen 

Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green?" 

Note this word also in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 404 ; in "All's 
Well that Ends Well," Act iv., sc. 5, p. 365 ; while in Addison, vol. 
iii., p. 176, we have: " This, says he, our Ovid himself has hinted, 
where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the blue water- 
nymphs are dressed in sky-coloured garments; and that Aurora, who 
always appears in the light of the rising sun, is robed in saffron." 

' As to Bacon's knowledge of fliowers, beasts, birds, music, gar- 
dens, magic, astrology, and kindred subjects, and spread everywhere 



60 INTKODUCTION. 

Again : " Ifc is strange how men, like owls, see sharply 
in the darkness of their own notions, but in the daylight 
of experience wink and are blinded" ^ (p. 231). Note the 
oft use of these words " owl " and " wink " throughout 
the plays. 

Again : " The gentler kinds of animals, as the sheep 
and dove, are not long-lived ; for bile acts as a whetstone 
or spear to many functions of the body" (p. 241). See 
later in the plays this word ^^ whetstone." 

We also in this brief " History of Life and Death" have 
such expressions as " effusion of blood," " flight of the 
sjoirits," " spur to assimilation," '* appetite of the spirit," 
" fruit of speech," '^ leaf-joy," " the firmament of food," 
*' the ways to death," " the ambient^ or external air," 
*' fortify the heart," " turn back the course of nature,"^ 
" sweet sorrow," ^ etc., and early in the article, p. 221, 
we have : " Inquire into the length and shortness of men's 
lives according to the times of Uieir nativity, but so as to 
omit for the present all astrological and horoscopical ob- 
servations. Admit only the common and manifest observa- 

in the plays, see liis "Natural History." But we stay too long 
upon our notes, and must hasten forward to more interesting and 
convincing fields. 

^ Promus, 657. Let the cat wink and let the mouse run. 

^ The outer air is distinguished by Bacon from that active within the 
body by the word ambient. Concerning this ambient air and heat, we, 
in the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 374, have : " If it be solid 
earth, 'tis the fountain of metals, waters, which by his innate temper 
turns air into water, which springs up in several chinks, to moisten the 
e£trth's superfcies, and that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) ; 
or else these fountains come directly from the sea, by secret passages, 
and so made fresh again by running through the bowels of the 
earth ; and are either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter of metals 
are by which they pass ; or, as Peter Martyr {Ocean. Decad., lib. 9) 
and some others hold, from abundance of rain that falls ; or from 
that ambient heat and cold, which alters that inward heat, and so 
per consequence, the generation of waters. Or else it may be full of 
wind, or sulpliureous innate fire, as our meteorologists inform us, 
which sometimes breaks out, causeth those horrible earthqnakes 
which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China, and oftentimes 
swallow up whole cities." 

2 In Romeo and Juliet, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 62, we have : 

" Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out." 

^ And same Act, sc. 2, p. 73 : 

" Good night, good night ! parting is such sweet sorrow. 
That I shall say good night, till it be morrow." 



INTRODUCTION". 61 

tions (if there be any) as whether the birth took place in 
the 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th month, whether by night or by 
day, and in what month of the year." 

Concerning the knowledge of flowers, displayed in the 
plays, we here from the Winter's Tale, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 
90, give place to the following : 

" O Proserpina,^ 
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall 
From Dis's wagon ! daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
That die unmarried ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and 
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce^ being one. O ! these I lack, 
To make you garlands of, and, my sweet friend. 
To strew him o'er and o'er." 

But it may be asked, How is it possible that Lord Bacon 
could have been the author of these writings, in addition to 
those generally attributed to him, in the light of the wide 
legal learning which he concededly possessed .^ 

The answer must be : 

1. That many of his attributed writings consist of ac- 
cumulated letters and legal papers. 

2. A considerable portion of the work was performed 
doubtless in early years. 

3. To the amount of qnalitative menial labor whicli he 
was able to perform in a brief period of time. 

^ See, please, in Bacon's " Wisdom of the Ancients" his inter- 
pretation of the fable entitled " Proserpina ; or. Spirit." In 
Addison, vol. ii., p. 291, we have: "I remember the last opera I 
saw in that merry nation was the rape of Proserpine ; where Pluto, 
to make the more tempting ligure, puts himself in a French equi- 
page, and brings Ascalaphus along with him as his valet de chambre. 
This is what we call folly and impertinence, but what the French 
look upon as gay and polite," 

■•^ As to the word " flower-de-luce," we, from Addison, vol. iv,, p. 
366, quote thus : " Count Tarriff appeared just the reverse of Good- 
man Fact, He was dressed in a tine brocade waistcoat, curiously 
embroidered with flower-de-luces. He wore also a broad-brimmed 
hat, a shoulder-knot, and a pair of silver-clocked stockings." These 
words will be found covers for occult meanings, as well in Addison 
as in the plavs. The system was begun in the youthful treatise the 
" Anatomy of Abuses," and which is a great onslaught upon the sub- 
ject of apparel. 



62 INTRODUCTION. 

4. To his thirst for knowledge and unceasing labor, 
joined with the resolution, '* I have taken all knowledge to 
be my providence." 

5. To his known habit of ruminating or re-embodying 
his thought, in order that it might aj)pear in more terse 
statement : and hence the concentration of thought reached 
in the so-called Shakespeare plays. 

6. To method, concerning which he himself says : '* In 
studies, whatsoever a man command eth upon himself, let 
him set hours for it ; but whatever is agreeable to his 
nature, let him take no care for any set times ; for his 
thoughts will fly to it of themselves, so as the spaces of 
other business or studies will suffice." 

7. And generally to those rare mental gifts concerning 
v^hich Macaulay, in his Essay on Bacon, says : " With 
great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of 
comprehension, such as has never yet been vouchsafed to 
any other human being." 

And from a piece of this literature, later to be called 
under review, and which we have called the Head Light 
to our Head Light, we quote as follows : 

" In my disposure of employments of the brain, I 
have thought fit to make invention the master, and to give 
method and reason the office of its lackeys. The cause of 
this distribution was from observing it my peculiar case 
to be often under a temptation of being witty upon occa- 
sions where I could be neither wise, nor sound, nor any 
thing to the matter in hand. And I am too much a ser- 
vant of the modern way to neglect any such opportunities, 
whatever pains or improprieties I may be at to introduce 
them." 

Bacon, and closely upon the heels of the Reformation, 
as we shall see, undertook the establishment of a system 
of philosophy in which things, or actualities only, and the 
orderly relations unfolding from them, even to the very 
fringes thereof, should be taken or stand as supreme. In 
other words, he urged that the mind should be taught to 
stay upon material change, rather than upon speculative 
meditation, if we would know nature or her truths in 
native or orderly unfoldment ; and he carried this idea 
forward into all of his doings. He read to his age the 
lesson that it was not enough that conclusions follow from 
premises under the then existing logic, but that we must 



INTRODUCTION". 63 

know that the premises themselves be true, otherwise 
errors with truths may commingle, and thus render worth- 
less the fabric. He urged not merely greater definiteness 
as to the particulars themselves of knowledge, but that the 
judgment upon the particular required aid, and which his 
inductive tables, or tabular methods — the centre of his 
system — were intended to supply. 

He himself sought the face of every unfoldment in 
nature, character, and life, and made facts royal. Wher- 
ever force was active in material change, there were his 
eyes, his life, his mind, and he thus reformed the philoso- 
phy, the stage, and the general literature of his day, by 
catching each actuality as it arose. He taught that mind 
is a divine instrument lent for good, and not to be used 
merely upon itself, but upon the vast universe without ; 
and so in his Shakespeare he says : " Heaven with us as 
we with torches do, not light them for themselves. '^ 

In his article entitled " Of the Interpretation of Na- 
ture" (Works, vol. i., p. 84), he says : '^ For as^ in inquiry 
of divine truth the pride of man hath ever inclined to 
leave the oracles of God's word and to vanish in the mix- 
ture of their own inventions, so, in the self-same manner, 
in inquisition^ of nature, they have ever left the oracles 
of God's works, and adored the deceiving and deformed 
imagery, which the unequal mirrors of their own minds 
have represented unto them. Nay,' it is a point fit and 

' Note throughout this literature, as in this sentence, the use of 
the words "as" and "so" to present contrasted thought in the same 
sentence. We do not mean to say that this form is not somewhat 
used by others, but only that it is a noticeable earmark in the works 
under review. We give an example from the " Anatomy of Melan- 
choly," vol. i., p. 256 : " For as the distraction of the mind, amongst 
other outward causes and perturbation, alters the temperature of the 
body, so the distraction and distemper of the body will cause a dis- 
temperature of the soul ; and 'tis hard to decide which of these two 
do more harm to the other." 

'^ Note this use of the word " inquisition" for inquiry in all of the 
works under review. In The Tempest, Act i., sc. 2, p. 22, we 
have : 

"You have often 

Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd. 

And left me to a bootless inquisition ; 

Concluding, ' Stay, not yet.' " 

^ Note, please, in every phase of these writings the use of the word 
" nay" and the words " I say." 



64 INTRODUCTION. 

necessary in the f mnt, und beginning of this work, without 
hesitation or reservation to be professed, that it is no less 
true in this human kingdom of knowledge, than in God's 
kingdom of heaven, that no man shall enter into it ' except 
he become first as a little child.' " Concerning this child, 
the true babe of philosophy, we shall later have something 
to say in a somewhat singular connection. 

Even in his Crusoe material things are so co-ordi- 
nated and marshalled as to their just relations that we 
are inclined to overlook the author's matchless genius, 
nature being held with so true a hand as that all imagina- 
tion, contrivance, or invention seems absent from the work ; 
and it is only by mental effort that we can make it seem 
unreal. There is here, indeed, that semblance of artless- 
ness which is the perfection of art. 

As bearing in the direction of Crusoe, we quote from 
a letter by Bacon in 1622 to Father Redemptus Baranzano, 
Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Anneci, where- 
in, among other things, he says : " The novelists whom you 
name — Petricius, Telesius,^ besides others whom you do 
not mention, 1. have read. There may be any number of 
the kind, — as were also in ancient times Anaximenes, 
Anaxagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, and others (for I 
omit Pythagoras, as superstitious). Between these, as 
wel! ancient as modern, I observe great difference in point 
of faculty ; in point of truth, very little. The sum of the 
matter is this : if men will submit themselves to things, 
something will be done ; if not, those wits will come round 
again in the circle."^ (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 377.) 

Crusoe when put forth v^as a new departure in the 
literary world, nothing of its kind having before appeared. 
This and other like writings gave Defoe the credit of being 
the first English novelist. As differing from the then 
works of fiction, they paint men as existing and acting 
their manners, habits, and passions amid present or exist- 
ing environments. They bear, in fact, about that relation 

^ In sub. 69, of Bacon's Natural History, he, concerning certain 
views there presented touching the production of cold, says : "It 
was the opinion of Telesius, who hath renewed the philosophy of 
Parmenides, and is the best of the novelists." 

^ In the introduction to his fragment entitled " The Holy War," 
written in 1622, he said that he intended to write " some patterns of 
natural story," as we shall see. 



INTRODUCTION. 65 

to the then works of fiction that the Shakespeare plays did 
to the old miracle plays. 

Bat it may be said, What, then, are you going to do with 
the rest of these actors, and particularly with the accredited 
chief, Defoe ? As to Defoe, we purpose to note the in- 
congruity between the man himself and his reputed work, 
and let him alone. It is, indeed, somewhat amusing to 
one possessed of the facts yielded by close investigation 
upon our subject to see what turns, shifts, devices, and 
excuses Defoe's biographers have been compelled to resort 
to, in order to clear his record from assaults made upon 
him by reason of his ignorance and assumptions, and who 
at the age of twenty-seven years was but a kind of livery- 
man in London, as we shall see, and at about which time 
the Defoe literature began its inundation, though until 
some years later fathered upon no one. The conclusions 
of Defoe's biographers will be found to have been drawn, 
no^ from the character and personal history of the man 
himself, but almost wholly from the writings attributed to 
him, and which confessedly show not only great inherent 
subtlety and merit, but exhaustive research into all of the 
wisdom of the ancients, including ancient biography, 
mythology, astrology, apparitions, second sight, and magic ; 
and a like research into Scripture, geography, history, 
philology, cipher writing, general literature, finance, art, 
science, and philosophy. 

But there are doubtless those who will prefer to shut 
their eyes to developments, preferring that these marks 
shall stand for or represent the genius of the ages, than to 
know the truth ; in other words, than to have their idols 
disturbed. From such little need be expected in aid of 
any truth. We write, however, for those who, while care- 
fully guarding landmarks, are still willing to open their 
eyes ; for those who, as Bacon says, " while not hasty to 
affirm, or unrestrained in doubting, hold every new field 
but as in probation." 

From such we invite investigation, and ask no more than 
suspended judgment until our lights be set. 

The supreme desire of Lord Bacon, and especially in his 
later years, was that the cream of his work, so to speak, 
his far-reaching philosophy, might be accepted by the 
world ; and for this, among other reasons, it may well be 
considered as to whether he was not willing, by means of a 
3 



66 INTRODUCTION". 

cipher or key, as has been claimed, to bide his time as to 
his other writings, which, if they had ail been claimed and 
put forth at once, might thus by mere volnminousness 
have cansed neglect of all, but which, by system, would, 
render all available. It should also be considered as to 
whether, realizing the power and malignity of envy and 
his then depressed condition, he did not see that a future 
period would be more just, both to him, and to his writ- 
ings. The subject of cipher writing is' known to have 
been unusually familiar to him, as will appear in many 
places in his writings, and particularly in ch. 1, Book VI. 
of the De Augmentis, where he presents the subject and 
gives what he regards as the most perfect example of this 
kind of writing. As the work was issued but three years 
prior to his death, it shows the subject late in ^ife still 
prominent in his thoughts. But later we shall find a 
deeper thread. 

Again, suppose the key should fail. Tn that event, were 
the branches of this philosophy, as telltales to the system, 
stayed by method to some specific period, and in part 
foiled, either by intrigue, by plunder, by fear in handling, 
or by all combined, or were they stayed without method ? 

Whichever of these views be accepted, by reason of the 
facts and circumstances made to appear under our title 
Harley and Defoe, they will in no way affect the fact as to 
whether these are or are not the writings of Lord Bacon, 
as that must now be determined upon other grounds. 

They will at least be found to elaborate and explain 
Lord Bacon's subtle views upon certain branches of philoso- 
phy. They will likewise be found to furnish forth the 
best extant material to sustain the theory of his authorship 
of the so called Shakespeare plays, as the reader will be 
made to realize when sufficiently advanced in our subject. 

In ch. 1, Book III., of the De Augmentis, he, as to the 
sciences, says : " We shall therefore divide sciences into 
theology and philosophy. In the former we do not in- 
clude natural theology, of which we are to speak anon,^ 

' This will be found an oft-used word In the plays. Tn All's Well 
that Ends Well, Act. i., sc. 3, p. 284, we have : 

'• Count. Get you gone, sir : I'll speak with you more anon." 
In "The Pilgrim's Progress," p. 381, we liave : " When Apollyon 
was beat, he made his retreat to the next valley, that is called the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death, unto which we shall come anon." 



INTRODUCTION. 67 

but restrict ourselves to inspired divinity, the treatment 
of which we reserve as the close of the work, as the fruit 
and sabbath of all human contemplation." ' And please 
see the next chapter, where he defines natural theology and 
makes it a distinct branch of philosophy. 

In this line it was, as we shall claim, that portions of 
the Defoe literature were produced by him. In the intro- 
ductory matter to his Great Instauration (Works, vol. iii., 
p. 341), he says : " But after furnishing the understanding 
with the most surest^ helps and precautions, and having 
completed by a rigorous levy a complete host of di'vine 
works, nothing remains to be done but to attack philoso- 
phy herself." Do the words " and having completed by a 
rigorous levy a complete host of divine works" mean any- 
thing ? He does not speak of them as in contemplation, 
but says they have been completed. Where are they ? 
It is needless to say that Lord Bacon left no treatise of this 
character that has ever been attributed to him, and hence 
the oft-mooted question as to his real religious convictions. 
We have much, indeed, to unearth, and a period in Eng- 
lish history is yet to be written. As to the divine works 
alluded to, he at least says they were " completed by a 
rigorous levy," whatever that may mean. Later we shall 
call attention to an instance of this levy, as set out in that 
distinguished allegory known as The Pilgrim's Progress, 
the claimed product from the pen of an untaught rustic, 
though justly pronounced the finest specimen of well- 
sustained allegory in any language. 

Lord Bacon was favorable to this Pilgrim's Progress 
method of couching religious thought, as will appear in 
many places in his attributed writings. See what he says 
concerning the subject of allegory in ch. 13, Book II., of 
the De Augmentis, while in ch. 2, Book VI., as to apho- 
risms, he says : " But that other way of delivery by apho- 
risms has numerous advantages over the methodical. And, 
first, it gives us a proof of the author's abilities and shows 
whether he hath entered deeply into his subject or not. 
Aphorisms are ridiculous things unless wrought from the 

^ Did he attempt the performance of this Sabbath day work in 
" The Pilgrim's Progress" ? 

^ Even the errors in these writings are the same. In Henry IV., 
part 2, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 370, we have the expression : 

" And in the calmest and most stillest night." 



6S INTRODUCTION-. 

central parts of the sciences ; and here all illustration, ex- 
cursion, variety of example, deduction, connection, and 
particular description is cut off, so that nothing besides 
an ample stock of observations is left for the matter of 
aphorism.s/ And, therefore, no person is equal to the 
forming of aphorisms, nor would ever think of them, if he 
did not find himself copiously and solidly instructed for 
writing upon subjects." 

In the light of Bacon's consummate skill in deciphering 
ancient fables, as will appear in his "Wisdom of the 
Ancients," it may not be amiss for the reader to investi- 
gate some of the Defoe literature other than Crusoe, to see 
whether it may not be allegoric, Crusoe being a claimed 
allegory of the life, or life aims, of its author. 

As to securing mental instruction through device or alle- 
gory, as sought in The Pilgrim's Progress, we, from the 
Defoe History of Apparitions, Talboy edition, p. 43, quote 
as follows : 

"But hold! whither am I going? This looks like re- 
ligion, and we must not talk a word of that if we expect 
to be agreeable. Unhappy times ! where to be serious is 
to be dull and grave, and consequently to write without 
spirit. We must talk politely, not religiously ; we may 
show the scholar, but must not show a word of the Chris- 
tian ; so we may quote profane history, but not sacred ; 
and a story out of Lucan or Plutarch, Tully or Virgil 
will go down, but not a word out of Moses or Joshua. 

" Well, we must comply, however ; the humour of the 
day must prevail ; and as there is no instructing you 
without pleasing you, and no pleasing you but in your 
own way, we must go on in that way ; the understanding 
must be refined by allegory and enigma ; you must see 
the sun through the cloud and relish light by the help of 
darkness ; the taste must be refined by salts, the appetite 
whetted by bitters ; in a word, the manners must be re- 
formed in masquerade, devotion quickened by the stage, ^ 
not the pulpit, and wit be brightened by satires upon sense. " 

' Let this thought be applied to that pruning that produced The 
Pilgrim's Progress. 

- Bacon says : " For it is a rule in the art of transmission, that all 
knowledge which is not agreeable to anticipations or presuppositions 
must seek assistance from similitudes and comparisons." (De Aug- 
mentis, ch. 2, Book 6.) In the same book, ch. 4, he, as to the stage, 
says : "It is a thing, indeed, if practiced professionallj^ of low re- 



INTRODUCTIOIf. 69 

In the same sense the author of The Pilgrim's Progress, 
in his apology for his book, says : 

" You see the ways the firsherman doth take 
To catch the tish ; what engine doth he make ! 
Behold how he engageth all his wits ; 
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets ; 
Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line, 
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine, can make thine'; 
They must be groped for, and be tickled too, 
Or they will not be catch 'd, whate're you do. 

" How does the fowler seek to catch his game ? 
By diverse means, all which one- cannot name ; 
His guns, his nets, his lime-twigs,^ light and bell : 
He creeps, he goes, he stands ; yea, who can tell 
Of all his postures ? Yet there's none of these 
Will make him master of what fowls he please. 
Yea, he must pipe and whistle, to catch this ; 
Yet, if he does so, that bird he will miss. 

" If that a pearl may in toad's head^ dwell, 
And may be found, too, in an oyster-shell ; 

pute ; but if it be made a part of discipline, it is of excellent use. I 
mean stage-playing : an art which strengthens the memory, regulates 
the tone and eifect of the voice and pronunciation, teaches a decent 
carriage of the countenance and gesture, gives not a little assurance, 
and accustoms young men to bear being looked at. " 

^ As to " lime-twigs" Bacon says : " And what though the Master 
of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex, and yourself, and others think 
my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condi- 
tion, to stand so that whatsoever service I do to her majesty it shall 
be thought to be but servitium mscalum, lime-twigs and fetches to 
place myself ; and so I shall have envy, not thanks." (Bacon's Let- 
ters, vol. i., p. 359.) What shall we say as to these adroitly used 
Baconian subtilities by the itinerant Bunyan ? In Macbeth, Act iv., 
sc. 3, p. 314, we, as to lime-twigs, have : 

•* L. Maccl. Poor bird ! thou'dst never fear the net, nor lime. 

The pit-fall, nor the gin." 

In the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iii., sc. 2, p. 174, we have : 
" But you. Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough ; 
You must lay lime, to tangle her desires. 
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes 
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows." 
2 Concerning the " toad's head," we, in Bacon's Natural History, 
sub. 967, have : " Quere, if the stone taken out of the toad's head be 
not of the like virtue ; for the toad loveth shade and coolness. " And 
in vol. iii. of the Phil. Works, p. 818, we have : " They speak of a 
stone engendered in a toad's head." 
In "As You Like It," Act ii., sc. 1, p. 170, we have : 



70 INTRODUCTION. 

If things that promise nothing, do contain 
What better is than gold ; who will disdain, 
That have an inkling of it, there to look, 
That they may find it ? Now, my little book 
(Though void of all those paintings that may make 
It with this or the other man to take), 
Is not without those things that do excel 
What do in brave and empty notions dwell." 

Bacon had a distinct belief that Homer and others, of 
the ancients, had used these concealed methods, and he 
evidently attempted to outdo in all directions what had 
gone before him. In the light of this statement, we quote 
the opening words of one of the many articles in Addison 
concerning fables and allegories, thus : 

'* Fables were the first pieces of wit that made their ap- 
pearance in the world, and have been still highly valued, 
not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the 
most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the tree 
is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which 
have been made since that time. Nathan's fable of the 
poor man and his lamb is likewise more ancient than any 
that is extant, besides the above-mentioned, and had so 
good an effect, as to convey instruction to the ear of a 
king without offending it, and to bring the man after 
God's own heart to a ri^ht sense of his guilt and his duty. 
We find ^sop in the most distant ages of Greece ; and if 
we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of 
Rome, we see a mutiny among the common people ap- 
peased by a fable of the belly and the limbs, which was in- 
deed very proper to gain the attention of an incensed rab- 
ble, at a time when perhaps they would have torn to pieces 
any man who had preached the same doctrine to them in 
an open and direct manner.^ As fables took their birth in 
the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more 
than when learning was at its greatest height. To justify 
this assertion, I shall put my reader in mind of Horace, 

" Sweet are the uses of adversity ; 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt. 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

' To this fable we have already called attention and shown its 
Baconian connections, p. 56. 



INTRODUCTION^. 71 

the greatest wit and critic in the Augustan age ; and of 
Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns, not to 
mention La Fontaine, who, by this way of writing, is come 
more into vogue than any other author of our times. 

*' The fables I have here mentioned are raised altogether 
upon brutes and vegetables, with some of our own species 
mixed among them, when the moral hath so required.^ 
But, besides this kind of fable, there is another in which 
the actors are passions, virtues, vices, and other imaginary 
persons of the like nature. Some of the ancient critics 
will have it that the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are fables 
of this nature ; and that the several names of gods and 
heroes are nothing else but the affections of the mind in a 
visible shape and character.* Thus they tell us that 
Achilles, in the first Iliad, represents anger, or the irascible 
part^ of human nature. That upon drawing his sword 
against his superior in full assembly, Pallas is only another 
name for reason, which checks and advises him upon that 
occasion ; and at her first appearance touches him upon 
the head, that part of the man being looked upon as the 
seat of reason." (Addison, vol. iii., p. 45.) 

But, again, what became of the works in which Lord 
Bacon played the nurse both with his own thoughts and 
those of others ? 

Bacon, in 1624, and thus but two years prior to his 
death, and when all had been published that was published 
daring his life, says : " But I account the use that a man 
should seek of the publication of his own writings before 
his death, to be but an untimely anticipation of that 
which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along with 
him." (Works, vol. ii., p. 436.) 

We would now focalize most sharply the attention of the 
reader upon chs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Book VI. of the De 
Augmentis. It is, indeed, a wonder that these matters 
should have slept so long. In ch. 4 we have the " critic's 
chair" referred to, and which we would have the reader 

^ The works of Addison, in the particulars here enumerated, will, 
-we apprehend, yet lend aid in unfolding much that is in the plays. 
See Bacon's allusion to " cookery" In connection with rhetoric, in 
ch, 3 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis. 

'^ The names of the characters or actors in The Pilgrim's Progress 
but stand for mental qualities. 

^ Note througliout this Baconian use of the word "part." See 
p. 58, note 3. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

note for future reference.' In ch. 2 we have covert meth- 
ods touched upon for the handing on of writings to pos- 
terity, and called " the wisdom of transmission." He in 
this notes a deficiency in these words : " Therefore I note 
it as deficient, and term it the Handing on the Lamp, or 
Method of Delivery to Posterity." In ch. 3 the method 
of transmission by cipher writing is presented, and to 
which we have already alluded. Under the head of soph- 
isms in this chapter may be found covert allusions, we 
think, to his own troubles, later to fall under review. 
The first alluded- to chapter ojDens thus : 

*' It is permitted to every man (excellent King) to make 
merry with himself and his own matters. Who knows, 
then, but this work of mine is copied from a certain old 
book found in the most famous library of St. Victor, of 
which Master Francis Rabelais made a catalogue ? For 
there is a book there entitled ' The Ant-IIill of Arts.' 
And certainly I have raised up here a little heap of dust, 
and stored under it a great many grains of sciences and 
arts ; into which the ants may creep and rest for a while, 
and there prepare themselves for fresh labours. Now the 
wisest of kings refers sluggards to the ants ; and for my part 
I hold all men for sluggards who care' only to use what 
they have got, without preparing for new seed-times and 
new harvests of knowledge. 

** Let us now proceed to the art of Transmitting, or of 
producing and expressing to others those things which 
have been invented, judged, and laid up in the memory ; 
which I will call by a general name the Art of Transmis- 
sion. This art includes all the arts which relate to words 
and discourse. For although reason be, as it were, the soul 
of discourse, yet in the handling of them reason and dis- 
course should be kept separate, no less than soul and 
body. . . . 

" I must speak concerning the Organ of Transmission in 
general. For it seems that the art of transmission has some 
other children^ besides Words and Letters. This, then, may 

^ Bacon, as Addison, sat in that chair, and said what he liked, in 
laudation of his work. Sitting witliin this veil, or ''weed, " gave 
freedom to speak a century after he was in his grave. His purpose 
in this undisclosed work will later come into view, and hinted at by 
the word " use" in the previous paragraph. 

2 Let the reader keep his eye a little upon the word " children" 
as here applied to literary products. 



INTRODUCTION-. 73 

be laid down as a rule ; tliat whatever can be divided into 
differences sufficiently numerous to explain the variety of 
notions (provided those differences be perceptible to the 
sense) may be made a vehicle to convey the thoughts of 
one man to another. For we see that nations which under- 
stand not one another's language carry on their commerce 
well enough by means of gestures. And in the practice 
of some who had been deaf and dumb from their birth 
and were otherwise clever, I have seen wonderful dialogues 
carried on between them and their friends who had learned 
to understand their gestures.* Moreover, it is now well 
known that in China and the provinces of the furthest 
East there are in use at this day certain real characters, 
not nominal ; characters, I mean, which represent neither 
letters nor words, but things and notions ; insomuch that 
a number of nations whose languages are altogether differ- 
ent, bat who agree in the use of such characters (which 
are more widely received among them), communicate with 
each other in writing, to such an extent, indeed, that any 
book written in characters of this kind can be read off by 
each nation in their own language. 

'^ The Notes of Things, then, which carry a significa- 
tion without the help or intervention of words, are of 
two kinds:- one ex congruo, where the note has some 
congruity with the notion, the other ad placihim, where 
it is adopted and agreed upon at pleasure.^ Of the 
former kind are Hieroglyphics and Gestures ; of the 
latter the Real Characters above mentioned. The use 
of Hieroglyphics is very old, and held in a kind of 
reverence, especially among the Egyptians, a very an- 
cient nation. So that they seem to have been a kind of 
earlier born writing, and older than the very elements of 
letters, except perhaps among the Hebrews. Gestures are 
as transitory Hieroglyphics. For as uttered words fly 
away, but written words stand, so Hieroglyphics express- 
ed in gestures pass, but expressed in pictures remain. 
. . . Real characters, on the other hand, have nothing 

^ Read in this connection the early chapters, and particularly ch. 
3, of the Defoe work entitled Duncan Campbell, a dumb philoso- 
plier, and which shows research here, and great research iuto the 
subject of second sight. 

2 Promus, 1133. Motion of the mind. Explicate in words, impli- 
cate in thoughts. I judge best implicate in thoughts. I hail or mark 
because of swiftness collocat and differ to make words sequac (sic). 



74 INTRODUCTION. 

emblematic in them, but are merely surds, no less than 
the elements of letters themselves, and are only framed 
ad placitum, and silently agreed on by custom. It is evi- 
dent, however, that a vast multitude of them is wanted for 
writing ; for there ought to be as many of them as there 
are radical words. This portion, therefore, of the doctrine 
of the Organ of Discourse, which relates to the Notes of 
Things, I set down as wanting." 

These methods, and please note them for future refer- 
ence, were in great part the outcome of Bacon's mental 
amplitude. The mechanism of language was too cum- 
brous for him, and he delighted to wing his way in meth- 
ods by which he might in a single mark or letter embody 
an entire idea, and for aught we know an entire piece of 
writing. In this, fables, in a measure, lent him aid. To 
express thought in puzzles, enigmas, or colors, was to him 
a pleasure, and his mind seems as if framed for allegory. 
AVhatever was difficult was a pleasure, and knots and the 
undoing of them was a delight. As he delighted in em- 
bodying the particulars of a thought in a single mark, so 
did he delight to sweep from his tabled particulars of 
knowledge, second thoughts. 

It is, indeed, probable that the cipher method was early 
employed in the plays ; but there is matter appearing at 
the beginning of ch. 2 that inclines us to think that it 
may have been abandoned for another. Concerning these 
ideas, we from ch. 2 quote as follows : " And first, for 
the ' one and only method,' with its distribution of every- 
thing into two members, it is needless to speak of it ; for 
it was a kind of cloud that overshadowed knowledge for 
awhile and blew over ; a thing no doubt both very weak 
in itself and very injurious to the sciences. For while 
these men press matters by the laws of their method, and 
when a thing does not aptly fall into those dichotomies, 
either pass it by or force it out of its natural shape, the 
effect of their proceeding is this : the kernels and grains 
of the sciences leap out, and they are left with nothing in 
their grasp but the dry and barren husks. And therefore 
this kind of method produces empty abridgments^ and 
destroys the solid substance of knowledge. 

' And in Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 264, we have : 
" The first row of pious chanson will sliow you more ; for look, 
where ray abridgment comes." 



IJfTRODUCTION'. 75 

" Let the first difference of Method, then, be this : it is 
either Magistral or Initiative. Observe, however, that in 
using the word ' initiative,' I do not mean that the busi- 
ness of the latter is to transmit the beginnings only of 
sciences, of the former to transmit the entire doctrine. 
On the contrary, I call that doctrine initiative (borrowing 
the term from the sacred ceremonies) which discloses and 
lays bare the very mysteries of the sciences. The magistral 
method teaches ; the initiative intimates. The magistral 
requires that what is told should be believed ; the initiative 
that it should be examined.^ The one transmits knowl- 
edge to the crowd of learners ; the other to the sons, as it 
were, of science." 

That he intended a portion of his writings should be 
handed down through some chosen device may be seen 
from his article entitled " Of the Interpretation of Na- 
ture," which ends thus : *' But the method of publishing 
these things is to have such of them as tend to seize the 
correspondences of dispositions and purge the areas of 
minds given out to the vulgar and talked of ; and to have 
the rest handed down with selection and judgment. Nor 
am I ignorant that it is a common and trite artifice of 
impostors to keep apart from the vulgar certain things 
which are nothing better than the impertinences they set 
forth to the vulgar. But without any imposture, from 
sound providence, I foresee that this formula of interpre- 
tation, and the inventions made by it, will be more vigor- 
ous and secure when contained within legitimate and 
chosen devices. Yet I undertake these things at the risk 
of others. For none of those things which depend upon 
externals concern me ; nor do I hunt after fame, or, like 
the heretics, take delight in establishing a sect ; and to re- 
ceive any private emolument from so great an undertaking, 
I hold to be both ridiculous and base. Sufficient for me 
is the consciousness of desert, and the very accomplish- 
ment itself of things, which even fortune cannot with- 
stand." (Works, vol. 2, p. 550.) 

He says : " Yet I undertake these things at the risk of 
others." And what risk? We shall later see when we 

^ Bacon seemed to desire to be ever hunted for and yet not found; 
and so that when thought in the grasp, to slip on a little before. 
In other words, he kept the globe of his knowledge turning. Of 
this globe he was the radiating centre, and was both its latitude and 
longitude. 



76 INTRODUCTION. 

come to that gigantic stage prepared for the actors of 
another historic period. As to how well they performed 
their parts, that is a matter which, to use a Baconian 
expression, " inay ie considered hy itself.''^ 

We would have the reader here note the words '* provi- 
dence" and ''fortune" as used in the foregoing quota- 
tion, and which will be found to have their distinctive 
Baconian use throughout the works under review. The 
word providence will, indeed, be found a royal word in 
the Baconian philosophy, and it may not improperly be 
said to be a kind of key to its entrance. This word, and 
in the same sense of use as in our noted headlight — his 
letter to Lord Burghley — is in some publications changed 
to " province," thinking it doubtless an erroneous use of 
the word, and which but shows the care that should be 
exercised before changing an author's chosen words. Mr. 
Montagu changes the word in said letter to " province," 
yet preserves the true word in a foot-note, while Mr. Spead- 
ing and others change it, and without note or explanation. 

Bacon makes this word stand for all that which is pro- 
visional in mind, and as extending thence over operating 
nature. When a providing, provision, or providence, is by 
mere human ideation, it is a human provision or provi- 
dence ; but back of or influential in this ideation is that 
which is divine. And so in his interpretation of the fable 
entitled "Prometheus, or the State of Man," he says: 
" For this one reason no doubt was, that the nature of 
man includes mind and intellect, which is the seat of 
Providence ; and since to derive mind and reason from 
principles brutal and irrational would be harsh and in- 
credible, it follows almost necessarily that the human 
spirit was endowed with providence not without the prec- 
edent and intention and warrant of the greater providence." 

We likewise find him using the expression " and from 
the deepest providence of my mind ;" and in this sense it 
was that he undertook to have a provision or providence 
over all human learning. And so in the play of Hamlet 
he makes the king, concerning the killing of Polonius, 
say : 

" Alas ! how shall this bloody deed be answered ? 
It will be laid to us, wliose providence 
Should have kept short, restrain'd and out of haunt, 
This mad young man." 



INTRODUCTION. 77 

What shall we say to this ? Here we have a word, and 
an exceedingly important one, used in so unusual a sense 
that all of Bacon's biographers have seen fit to substitute 
for it another ; and yet in the same identical Baconian 
sense do we find it used in the plays. 

Bacon, in his " Essay on Truth," says : '' Certainly it 
is heaven on earth to have a man's mind move in charity, 
rest in providence,^ and turn upon the poles of truth." 
"When such mental state exists the human and Divine 
Providence are, according to Bacon's views, at one or in 
accord, and hence the reaching of ends otherwise unattain- 
able. 

Concerning the Divine Providence he says : 

" That notwithstanding God had rested and ceased from 
creating since the first Sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth 
accomplish and fulfil his divine will in all things, great 
and small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by 
providence, as he could by miracle and new creation, 
though his working be not immediate and direct, but by 
compass ; not violating nature, which is his own law, upon 
the creature.' 

*' That at the first, the soul of man was not produced 
by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from 
God ; so that tlie ways and proceedings of God with spirits 
are not included in nature ; that is, in the laws of heaven 
and earth ; but are reserved to the law of his secret will 
and grace, wherein God worketh still, and resteth not 
from the work of redemption, as he resteth from the work 
of creation, but continueth working till the end of the 
world ; what time that work also shall be accomplished 
and an eternal sabbath shall ensue. "^ (Works, vol. ii., 
p. 408.) 

^ In Addison, vol. iii., p. 357, we liave : "When I consider this 
cheerful state of mind in its third relation, I cannot but look into it 
as a constant habitual gratitude to the great Author of nature. An 
inward cheerfulness is an implicit praise and thanksgiving to Provi- 
dence under all its dispensations. It is a kind of acquiescence in the 
state wherein we are placed, and a secret approbation of the Divine 
Will in his conduct towards men." This most admirable article 
should be read. 

5 As to the winds, Bacon says : " They are not primary creatures, 
nor among the works of the six days ; as neither are the other meteors 
actually ; but produced according to the order of creation" (p. 51). 

3 In Addison, vol. iii., p 129, we have: "But what I would 
chiefly insist upon here, is, that we are not at present in a proper sit- 



78 INTRO UUCTION". 

In ell. 4 of Book III. of the De Augmentis he says : 
''Nor does this call Divine Providence in question, but 
rather highly confirms and exalts it ; for as he is a 
greater politician, who can make others the instruments 
of his will, without acquainting them with his designs, 
than he who discloses himself to those he employs ; so the 
wisdom of Clod appears more wondrous when nature in- 
tends one thing, and Providence draws oub another, than 
if the characters of Providence were stamped upon all the 
schemes of matter and natural motion." 

In his interpretation of the fable of Pan, ch. 13, Book 
11. of the De Augmentis, he, concerning the shepherd's 
crook, says : " That sheephook, also representing empire, 
contains a noble metaphor, alluding to the mixture of 
straight and crooked in the ways of nature. And this rod 
or staff is crooked principally in the upper part ; because 
all of the works of Divine Providence in the world are 
mostly brought about in a mysterious and circuitous man- 
ner^ so that while one thing appears to be doing another 
is doing really ; as the selling of Joseph into Egypt and 
the like. Moreover, in all wise human governments, those 
who sit at the helm can introduce and insinuate what they 
desire for the good of the people more successfully by pre- 
texts and indirect ways than directly. Nay (which per- 
chance may seem strange), even in mere natural things 
you may deceive nature sooner than force her ; so ineffec- 
tual and self -impeding are all things which are done 

uation to judge of the counsels by which Providence acts, since but 
httle arrives at our knowledge, and even that little we discern im- 
perfectly ; or, according to the elegant ligure in holy writ, ' we 
see but in part, and as in a glass darkly.' It is to be considered 
that Providence, in its economy, regards the wdiole system of time 
and things together, so tliat we cannot discover the beautiful con- 
nections between incidents which lie widely separated in time, and 
by losing so many links of the chain our reasonings become broken 
and imperfect. Thus those parts in the moral world which have 
not an absolute, may yet have a relative beauty, in respect to some 
other parts concealed from us, but open to His eyes before whom 
' past, present, and to come ' are set together in one point of view ; 
and those events, the permission of which seems now to accuse His 
goodness, may, in the consummation of things, both magnify his good- 
ness and exalt his wisdom. And this is enough to check our pre- 
sumption, since it is in vain to apply our measures of regularity to 
matters of which we know neither the antecedents nor the conse- 
quents, the beginning nor the end." This admirable article should 
be read in full. 



INTRODUCTION. 79 

directly ; whereas, on the other hand, the indirect and 
insinuating way proceeds smoothly and gains its end." ' 

In the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 392, it is 
said : " For I am of his mind,^ that Columbus did not 
find out America by chance, but God directed him at that 
time to discover it ; it was contingent to him, but neces- 
sary to God ; he reveals and conceals to whom and when 
he will ; and, which one said of history and records of 
former times, God in his providence, to check our pre- 
sumptuous inquisition,^ wraps up all things in uncertainty, 
bars us from long antiquity, and bounds our search within 
the compass of some few ages." 

In the A. D. B. Mask, p. 24, we have : " Finally let 
this most memorable verse also like and delight every 
courtier and honest Christian : 

" In God's Alrnighty hand of Providence 
Lies all my Lot, Health, Wealth, Inheritance." 

And ch. 5 of the Serious Reflections of Robinsod Crusoe 
will be found a succinct collation of Lord Bacon's distinc- 
tive views, not as to a human, but as to the Divine Provi- 
dence. We will give place to some passages from it, and 
first to one from p. 65, where occurs Lord Bacon's expres- 
sion, and in his sense of use, " lead by the hand." 

" You may easily observe the differences between the 
directions and warnings of Providence when duly listened 
to and the notices of spirits from an invisible world — 
viz., that these are dark hints of evil, with very little 
direction to avoid it ; but those notices which are to be 
taken from the proceedings of Providence, though the 

^ And so in Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 248, we have : 

" Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth ; 
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, 
With wiudlaces, and with assays of bias, 
By indirections find directions out : 
So, by my former lecture and advice, 
Shall you my son. ' ' 
^ The expressions " For I am of his mind," and " For I am of his 
opinion," were common with Bacon. He says: " For I am of his 
opinion that said pleasantly. That it teas a shame to him that was 
a suitor to the mistress, to ' make lorn to the loaiting-iooman ; and 
therefore to woo or court common fame otherwise than it followeth 
upon honest courses, I, for my part, tind not myself lit uor dis- 
posed." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 14L) 

^ See Bacon's use of this word " inquisition," p. 63. 



80 INTRODUCTION". 

voice be a kind of silent or soft whisper, yet it is generally 
attended with an offer of the means for escaping the evil, 
nay, very often leads by the hand^ to the very proper steps 
to be taken, and even obliges us, by a strong conviction 
of the reason of it, to take those steps." 

And from the Defoe History of Apparitions, Talboy 
edition, p. 41, we have : *' Julius Caesar had several hints 
given him of his approaching fate ; one particular sooth- 
sayer pointed out the very day to him, namely, the ides of 
March, but he had no power to avoid his fate. The kind 
spirit that foreboded and gave hints to him that he was 
in danger, as if contented with having done his part, left 
him to be murdered. No assistance given him to rouse 
up his spirits to take the alarm : he is not led by the hand, 
and told, Go not into the senate-house, as was done for 
Lot, Escape for tliy life. The kind monitor does not name 
the traitors and assassinators to him, and say, Brutus, and 
Cassius, Casca, and others, wait there to kill you ; as the 
angel to Joseph, Herod will seek the young child to destroy 
Mm. 

" And, on the other side, Ca3sar, bold and unalarmed, 
indolent, and having things not sufficiently explained to 
him (and the good spirit, as may be supposed, able to do 
no more for him), goes on, enters the senate-house, mocks 
the soothsayer, and tells him the ides of March are come, 

• ^ In one of his articles on the " Interpretation of Nature" Bacon 
says : " But I almost agree with thee, my son, and will lead thee 
higher by the hand." (Works, vol. ii., p. 544 ; see also p. 551.) And, 
Phil. Woiks, vol. iv., p. 413, it is said, "but when he uses some 
direction and order in experimenting, it is as if he were led by the 
hand ; and this is what I mean by Learned Experience." In 
The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 97, we have : " I saw, moreover, in my 
dream that the Interpreter took him by the hand, and had him into 
a little room, where sat two little^children, each one in his chair. The 
name of the eldest w^as Passion, and the name of the other Pa- 
tience," It may be noticed that in each instance in The Pilgrim's 
Progress where the penitent is presented with a form or pattern for 
thought, that the Interpreter takes him by the hand and leads him 
to it. This pattern, as to "Passion" and "Patience," should be 
noted, and let the reader keep his eye a little upon the word " pa- 
tience" as used in the plays. And in Addison, vol. iv., p. 94, we 
have : " There was sent, in her stead, a goddess of a quite different fig- 
ure : her motions were steady and composed, and her aspect serious 
but cheerful. She every now and then cast her eyes towards 
heaven, and fixed them upon Jupiter ; her name was Patience." 



INTRODUCTION. 81 

who sharply returned, But they are not past.* In a word, 
neglecting his own safety, and wanting a complete infor- 
mation, he goes into the senate and is murdered. " ^ Read 
in this connection Bacon's interpretation of the fable 
Nemesis ; or, The Vicissitude of Things. 

But we return to Crusoe, and from p. 60 quote thus : 

" I have already hinted that he that made the world we 
are sure guides it, and his Providence is equally wonderful 
as his power. But nothing in the whole course of his 
Providence is more worthy our regard, especially as it con- 
cerns us his creatures, than the silent voice, if it may be 
allowed me to call it so, of his managing events and 
causes. He that listens to the Providence of God, listens 
to the voice of God, as he is seen in the wonders of his 
government, and as he is seen in the wonders of his omnip- 
otence. 

'* If, then, the events of things are his, as well as the 
causes, it is certainly well worth our notice, when the sym- 
pathy or relation between events of things and their causes 
most eminently appears ; and how can any man, who has 
the least inclination to observe what is remarkable in the 
world, shut his eyes to the visible discovery which there is 
in the events of Providence of a supreme hand guiding 
them ; for example, when visible punishments follow 
visible crimes, who can refrain confessing the apparent 
direction of supreme justice? When concurrence of cir- 
cumstances directs to the cause, men that take no notice 
of such remarkable pointings of Providence openly con- 
temn^ heaven, and frequently stand in the light of their 
own advantages. 

" The concurrence of events is a light to their causes, 
and the methods of heaven, in some things, are a happy 
guide to us to make a judgment in others ; he that is deaf 

^ Bacon says : " No conquest of Julius Caesar made him so re- 
membered as the calendar. " (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 335.) He 
also began an article entitled A Civil Character of Julius Csesar, but 
which was never finished. As to Caesar's character and the ides of 
March, see Addison, vol. iv., pp. 98 and 99. 

' Bacon recommended the writing of a History of Diagnostics ; 
or, Secret Natural Judgments ; also a History of Natural Divina- 
tion. 

. 3 Note throughout the plays and in every phase of this literature 
tiie use of this word " contemns." 



82 INTRODUCTION. 

to these things shuts his ears to instruction, and, like Solo- 
mon's fool, hates knowledge." 

And on p. 63 we have : 

*' It would be an ill account we should give of the gov- 
ernment of Divine Providence in the world, if we should 
argue that its events are so unavoidable and every circum- 
stance so determined that nothing can be altered, and 
that therefore these warnings of Providence are inconsis- 
tent with the nature of it. This, besides that I think it 
would take from the sovereignty of Providence, and deny 
even God himself the privilege of being a free agent, it 
would also so contradict the experience of every man liv- 
ing, in the varieties of his respective life, that he should 
be unable to give any account for what end many things 
which Providence directs in the world are directed, and 
why so many things happen which do happen. Why are 
evils attending us so evidently foretold, that by those 
foretellings they are avoided, if it was not determined 
before they should be avoided and should not befall us ? 

'' People that tie up all to events and causes strip the 
Providence of G-od which guides the world of all its super- 
intendency, and leave it no room to act as a wise disposer 
of things. 

" It seems to me that the immutable wisdom and power 
of the Creator and the notion of it in the minds of men is 
as dutifully preserved and is as legible to our understand- 
ing, though there be a hand left at liberty to direct the 
course of natural causes and events. It is sufficient to the 
honour of an immutable Deity, that, for the common in- 
cidents of life, they be left to the disposition of a daily 
agitator — namely. Divine Providence, to order and direct 
them as it shall see good, within the natural limits of cause 
and consequence. 

" This seems to me a much more rational system than 
that of tying up the hands of the Supreme Power to a road 
of things,* so that none can be acted or permitted but 
such as was so appointed before to be acted and per- 
mitted." 

' Aphorism 41, book 2 of the Novum Organiim opens thus : "In the 
eighteenth rank of prerogative instances we will class the instances 
of the road, which we are also wont to call itinerant and jointed in- 
stances. They are such as indicate the gradually continued motions 
of nature." 



INTRODUCTION. 83 

And we may add that the activities, in the outer world 
may be equally traced into the automatic and influential 
activities within the human body itself, as manifested in 
its organic and in its influential system of nerves. The 
influential system gathers from and is chiefly concerned 
with that which is external. And the organic or automatic, 
on which it rests, with that which is internal. AYhile these 
internal processes give organization, and thence sustention 
to the influential, they still function not into the influential 
or ideational field. They, however, or their formative ves- 
sels, manifest a kind of providence, wisdom, or intelligence 
in their selection and use of material far transcending idea- 
tion, which is bat a human process resulting from accu- 
mulated and retained impressions from things, upon that 
kind of intelligence which we call human ; and which rests 
not in mere consciousness, but in a consciousness of self, as 
separate from other things. As the dog seeks the lowest 
point to jump the fence, so the formative vessels step outside 
their routine of work and repair the broken bone. And yet 
is either process ideation ? and if so, must not both be ?^ In 
man, instinct — the law upon the creature — is broken. To 
have ideation, there must be a consciousness of self, and to 
have a consciousness of self, is to be a person. There is, 
therefore, a kind of wisdom within organization itself 
that is creative ; one that functions not into human con- 
sciousness, and which is wiser in its providence— that is, 
in its provisional selection and use of material, than is 
ideation ; one that not only builds but sustains structure 
until an influential or spiritual building may be erected 
and tenanted by material effect, and whence alone a future 
w^ithout matter is rendered possible. Is there more wonder 

^ The forces in nature below self-consciousness were by Bacon be 
lieved to be, as it were, species of instincts, and in Addison, vol. ii., 
p. 460, we have : " There is not, in my opinion, anything more mys- 
terious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above 
reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for 
by any properties in matter, and at the same time works after so odd 
a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. 
For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation 
in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities in- 
herent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism, 
but according to the best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an 
immediate impression from the first mover, and the Divine energy 
acting in the creatures." 



84 INTRODUCTION". 

as to outward activities, than as to those vvithiu the body, 
and which give its genesis? 

The influential in man has a limited control over the au- 
tomatic both without and within the body, and in two ways, 
and, as Bacon says, in but two. He says : " Whereas men 
ought, on the contrary, to have a settled conviction that 
things artificial differ from things natural, not in form or 
essence, but in the efficient ; that man has in truth no 
power over nature, except that of motion — the power, 
I say, of putting natural bodies together or separating 
them — and the rest is done by nature working within." 
(Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 506.) 

This brings us to the consideration of that other noted 
Baconian word "fortune," and concerning which Bacon 
says : 

" Such a cause as fortune is in the universe, such is the 
will in man." ^ (Works, vol. ii., p. 544.) 

The following from Bacon will be found variously spread 
in the plays : " Fortune makes him a fool whom she makes 
her darling." ' (Works, vol. i., p. 128.) 

'* If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see 
fortune ; for though she be blind, she is not invisible.'" 
(Works, vol. i., p. 130.) 

'* But I will leave you to the scorn of that mistress whom 
you undertake to govern ; that is, to fortune, to whom 
Philautia hath bound you." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 
385). 

" Corrupt Statesman, you that think by your engines* 
and motions to govern the wheel of fortune ; do you not 
mark that clocks cannot be long in temper, that jugglers 

^ See the able article upon the subject of fortune in Addison, vol. 
iii.. pp. 303-306. 

* In Romeo and Juliet, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 97, we have : 

" Bom. Oh ! I am fortune's fool." 

3 In Henry V., Act iii., sc. 6, p. 517, we have : 

" Flu. By your patience, anchient Pistol. Fortune is painted 
plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune 
is plind: And she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, 
which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and 
mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a 
spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, 
tlie poet makes a most excellent description of it : fortune is an ex- 
cellent moral." 

"* Particularly note this use of the word " engine" throughout these 
writings. See our quotation from The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 69. 



INTKODUCTIOlf. 85 

are no longer in request when their tricks and slights are 
once perceived?" (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 384.) 

" And lastly, it is not amiss for men in their race 
toward their fortune to cool themselves a little with that 
conceit which is elegantly expressed by the emperor Charles 
the Fifth in his instructions to the King his son, that for- 
tune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that if she 
be too much wooed she is the further off." (Phil. Works, 
vol. iii., p. 473.) 

" Fortune is like Proteus ; if you persevere, she turns to 
her shape." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 482.) 

" For fortuiae is the child of the vulgar, and has only 
found favour with the lighter kind of philosophers." (Phil. 
Works, vol. iv., p. 321.) 

" For the things necessary for the acquisition of fortune 
are neither fewer nor less difficult nor lighter than those to 
obtain virtue ; and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a 
true politician, as to be truly moral. But the handling 
hereof concerns learning greatly, both in honour and sub- 
stance ; in honour principally, that pragmatical men may 
not imagine that learning is like a lark, which can mount 
and sing and please itself and nothing else ; but may know 
that it rather partakes of the nature of a hawk, which can 
soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon its prey 
at pleasure. Again, it tends to the perfection of learning, 
because it is the perfect law of the inquiry of truth, ' that 
nothing be in the globe of matter which has not its parallel 
in the globe of crystal or the understanding ' ; that is, that 
there be nothing in practice whereof there is no theory 
and doctrine ; not, however, that learning admires or es- 
teems this architecture of fortune otherwise than as an 
inferior work ; for no man's fortune can be an end worthy 
of the gift of being that has been given him by God ; and 
often the worthiest men abandon their fortunes willingly, 
that they may have leisure for higher pursuits.' But, 
nevertheless, fortune as an instrument of virtue and merit 
deserves its own speculation and doctrine. 

^ In Addison, vol. iv,, p. 57, we have : " Men of warm imagina- 
tions and towering thoughts are apt to overlook the goods of fortune 
which are near them for something that glitters in the sightat a dis- 
tance ; to neglect solid and substantial happiness for what is showy 
and superficial ; and to contemn that good which lies within their 
reach, for that which they are not capable of attaining." 



86 INTRODUCTION". 

*' To this doctrine are attaclied certain precepts, some 
summary and some scattered or various ; whereof the 
former relate to the just knowledge of ourselves and others. 
Let the first precept, then (on which the knowledge of 
others turns), be set down as this : that we obtain (as far 
as we can) that window which Momus' required ; who, 
seeing in the frame of man's heart such angles and recesses, 
found fault that there was not a window to look into its 
mysterious and tortuous windings." (Phil. Works, vol. v., 
pp. 58, 59.) 

" Of much like kind are those impressions of nature 
which are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, 
by the region, by health and sickness, by beauty and de- 
formity, and the like, which are inherent and not extern ;^ 
and again those which are caused by extern fortune ; as 
sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magis- 
tracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, 
variable fortune, rising pe7' saltimi^ per gradus, and the 
like." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 436.) 

In the quotation last given the gifts of nature and the 
gifts of fortune are distinctly marked off, or classed by 
themselves ; and so are they in the following, from the play 
of " As You Like It," Act i., sc. 2, p. 154 : 

' Note the word Momus for future reference. And in Addison, 
vol. iv., p. 196, we have : " You must understand, sir, I had yes- 
terday been reading and ruminating upon that passage where Momus 
is said to have found fault with the make of a man, because he had 
not a window in his breast. The moral of this story is very obvi- 
ous, and means no more than that the heart of man is so full of 
wiles and artifices, tieachery and deceit, that there is no guess- 
ing at what he is from his speeches and outward appearances." 
And same vol.. p. 149, w^e have: "Envy and cavil are the nat- 
ural fruiisof laziness and ignorance ; W'hich was probably the reason 
that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox 
and Somnus, of Darkness and Sleep. Idle men, who have not been 
at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to 
detract from others ; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those 
beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. 
Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of 
critics, are the genuine descendants of those two illustrious ancestors. " 
Later we shall tind these thoughts in the A. D. B. Mask and in the 
Anatomy of Melancholy, and they will all be brought into re- 
lation with the same use of the word by Swift upon the subject of 
critics. 

'^ This Baconian word " extern" we shall later find used in one of 
the sonnets. 



INTRODUCTION^. 87 

" Eos. What shall be our sport then ? 

" Cel. Let us sit and mock the good housewife. Fortune, from 
her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. 

" JRos. I would we could do so ; for her benefits are mightily mis- 
placed ; and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her 
gifts to women. 

" Cel. 'Tis true ; for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes 
honest ; and those that she makes honest, she makes very 111- 
favouredly. 

" Bos. Nay, now thou goest from fortune's office to nature's : 
fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of nature. 

Enter Touchstone. 

" Cel. No : When nature hath made a fair creature, may she not 
by fortune fall into the fire ?' — Though nature hath given us wit to 
flout at fortune, hath not fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argu- 
ment ? 

" Bos. Indeed, there is fortune too hard for nature, when fortune 
makes nature's natural the cutter off of nature's wit. 

" Cel. Peradventure,"^ this is not fortune's work neither, but na- 
ture's ; who, perceiving our natural wits too dull to reason of such 
goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone :^ for always the 
dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. — How now,* wit ? 
whither wander you ?" 

And in Act ii., sc. 7, p. 184, we have : 

" ' Good morrow, 5 fool,' quoth I : ' No, sir,' quoth he, 'call me 
not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune.' " ^ 

Having now touched briefly upon the subtle and distinc- 
tive views spread in this literature, as to the winds, the 
spirits, providence, and fortune, we conchule these points 
in a word concerning the play of The Tempest, said to 
have been the last of the poet's dramatic works. We may 
here find represented the mentioned subordinate or hu- 
man providence s9 blended with the Divine Providence 
that it seems a kind of royal magic. 

The powers of Prospero in this play seem ever worked to 
but just and beneficent ends, and so in harmony with cir- 
cumstances as to leave doubt, as to whether he controls their 
movements or falls in with them. 

His genius, the airy spirit, Ariel, links him with the 

' Promus, 666. To leap out of the frying pan into the fire. 
' Promus, 1371. Perad venture, can you, Sp. (what can you). 
^ Promus, 1066. (Therefore 1 discharge the office of a whetstone, 
which, itself incompetent to cut, can render iron sharp.) 
^ Promus, 313. And how now. 
^ Promus. 1189. Good morrow. 
^ Promus, 493. God sendeth fortune to fools. 



88 INTRODUCTION. 

world above him, or, in another sense, with the better age 
to come. Caliban, the monster, the warning, represents 
the low deformed bodily organism, or body of the times ; 
in another sense the discordant and nndeveloped age of 
science. Miranda — his philosophy — the daughter (Bacon 
says : " For truth is the daughter of time, not of author- 
ity"), links him with the world about and within him, and 
in which is wrapped the end for which he acts. At his 
advent upon the island, the powers that so obey his art 
were discordant, as in Caliban, the monster. But through 
him or his art they became somewhat harmonized, and so 
a triumph of art over nature. 

The magic here represented by Bacon, as Prospero, is 
the magic of genius, and in a sense so, in the direction 
pointed out. JBut in another sense it presents him follow- 
ing his troubles as still above the tempest of elements at 
work against him, and the elements controlled perplexing 
ones in his own life. The Spanish Minister Gondomar, 
as Gonzalo in the play, was the friend that is said to have 
given back his library or books after being abandoned by 
both Buckingham and the king ; and after his dukedom, 
his Milan, his empire of learning, had, by Buckingham, 
the false brother, been " bowed to most ignoble stocking.'^ 
In still another sense the play may lay deeper in meta- 
physics or theology. Bacon claims truth to be an island. 
He claims errors to be monsters. The monster, the Roman 
Church and the rabble, were here upon his truth, his 
island, and claimed now to be " the lord on't." 

The view secondly presented, will, so far as space per- 
mits, be the one which we shall in due. time undertake to 
elaborate. 

Bacon, though in a blind way, and as in an under-plot,* 

' Would the reader peruse the views and criticisms of the great 
Shakespeare himself upon the subject of tragedies ? Let him, then, 
read the articles in Addison upon that subject. Concerning under- 
plots in plays, we from one of these articles quote the following : " The 
same objections which are made to tragi-comedy may in some measure 
be applied to all tragedies that have a double plot in them ; which are 
likewise more frequent upon the English stage than upon any other ; 
for though the grief of the audience, in such performances, be not 
changed into another passion, as in tragicomedies, it is diverted upon 
another object, which weakens their concern for the principal action, 
and breaks the tide of sorrow by throwing it into different channels. 
This inconvenience, however, may in a great measure be cured, if 



INTRODUCTION. 89 

will be found largely self-centred in his work. Either 
chosen or self -prepared framework is made ever to proceed 
his mountings, analysis, and concentration. 

In Hamlet we behold him entering as the central fig- 
ure, prepared to exercise his providence over all knowl- 
edge, and to read lessons, not merely to his own age, but 
to the ages ; and there he will ever stand in his subtle 
and scholastic methods. He was indeed a seer. And 
how truly were his words to Horatio, in the ending of 
this great play, pertinent to the close of his own life, 
where he says : 

" O God ! — Horatio, what a wounded name 
Tilings standing thus unknown, shall live behind me !" 

Nor in his lifetime, more than in the play, did Bacon, 
save inferentially, make known the true cause of his 
troubles, as we shall later undertake to make manifest. 
He in the play says : 

" You that look pale and tremble at this chance, 
That are but mutes or audience to this act, 
Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant, death. 
Is strict in his arrest,) O ! I could tell you — 
But let it be. — Horatio, I am dead ; 
Thou liv'st ; report me and my cause aright 
To the unsatisfied," 

But Bacon had no Horatio, unless posterity shall be 
such. 

In this play, initiatory of his forthcoming work, is pre- 
sented the abuse of that ruling passion of the mind, which 
precipitates all the others upon the will ; and hence gives 
to the play its philosophic and melancholic air. Life is 
robbed of its charm, the most subtle cause of which is resi- 

not wholly removed, by the skilful choice of an under-plot, which 
may bear such a near relation to the principal design as to con- 
tribute toward the completion of it, and be concluded by the same 
catastrophe." (Addison, vol. ii., p. 309.) The article immediately 
preceding this one opens thus : "' As a perfect tragedy is the noblest 
production of human nature, so it is capable of giving the mind one 
of the most delightful and most improving entertainments. ' A vir- 
tuous man (says Seneca) struggling with misfortunes is such a spec- 
tacle as gods might look upon with pleasure ;' and such a pleasure it 
is which one meets with in the representation of a well-written trag- 
edy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our thoughts everything 
that is mean and little. Tiiey cherish and cultivate that humanity 
which is the ornament of our nature. They soften insolence, soothe 
affliction, and subdue the mind to the dispensations of Providence." 



90 INTRODUCTION-. 

dent in sex, and out of the abuse of which grew the murder 
of the king, Hamlet's father, and his own, and Ophelia's 
malady. And tlie slough of despond is reached. 

The mind early in the play is focalized upon the life to 
come, and the will puzzled, by the introduced ghost, and 
air of mystery.* The platform is here indeed designed to 
draw on the building. Bacon says : " Great matters 
(especially if they be religious) have (many times) small 
beginnings ; and the platform may draw on the building." 

He also says : " The human understanding is most ex- 
cited by that which strikes and enters the mind at once 
and suddenly, and by which the imagination is immedi- 
ately filled and inflated." While Bacon sought to weed 
the subjects of magic and apparitions, by means of the 
Defoe literature upon those subjects, he was still, in a 
sense, a believer both in the doctrine of second sight and 
apparitions, as we shall see ; and hence the ghost, and 
ghosts of the plays. ^ While in the Defoe literature we 
have a most astute philosopher, we still have not a philoso- 
phy, but merely Baconian branches of a philosophy. 

The play of Hamlet was in many ways typical of Bacon's 
forthcoming work, as that of The Tempest was of its close ; 
and its searchings were to be such as to be likened to that 
tracing in imagination of the noble dust of Alexander, 
until it finds it "' stopping a bung-hole." 

^ Promiis, 227. (Upon wondering, men begin to philosophize.) 
The apparition was to tliis play what the unaccounted for foot- 
print in the sand was to Crusoe. Pronius, 456. (The manes of fable 
— i.e., the shades of the departed ghosts.) 

'^ Mr. Spedding says: " Whence Bacon derived his idea of the na- 
ture of the Persian magic is a question with which we need not 
trouble ourselves here. For the present occasion it is enough to know 
that it was formerly the subject of many speculations ; inferences 
perhaps from a remark in Plato, that the princes of Persia were in- 
structed in politics and in magic by the same persons, and that the 
method of analogy in which Bacon supposed it to consist was be- 
lieved by him not only at this time but ever after, to be a sound 
one." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 89.) See in this connection the 
Addison article on apparitions, vol. ii.. pp. 440-443, and from which 
we quote as follows : " I should not have been thus particular upon 
these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so much prevail in all 
parts of the country. At the same time, I think a person who is thus 
terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres, much more 
reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, 
sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all 
nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless." 



INTRODUCTION. ■ 91 

Concerning the idols of the theatre, Bacon, in Aph. 44 
of the Novum Organum, Book 1, says : " Lastly, there 
are idols which have crept into men's minds from the 
various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also 
from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we de- 
nominate idols of the theatre ; for we regard all the systems 
of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many 
plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and 
theatrical worlds." 

And so referring in this great play to his own then un- 
published philosophy as a babe, he says : " Hark you, 
Guildenstern ; — and you too ; — at each ear a hearer : that 
great baby, you see there, is not yet out of its swaddling 
clouts." 

But in 1605, after its publication, that is, after the 
publication of the Advancement of Learning, which 
involved it, he accompanied a letter with a copy of the 
work to his literary friend, Toby Mathews, saying : " I 
have now at last taught that child to go, at the swaddling 
whereof you were." * (Works, vol. iii., p. 197.) 

In some editions of the play this word is improperly 
changed to ^^ swathing-clouts." 

In lf)85, the year in which the play is by some sup- 
posed to have been written, Bacon sketched or outlined 
this babe — his philosophy — under the title. The Noblest 
Birth of Time. And in a letter in later years concerning 
his writings he refers to it as a juvenile work, and as hav- 
ing the mentioned pompous title. (Works, vol. iii., p. 64.) 

In a letter in 1609 to Bishop Andrews, the Bishop of 
Winchester, and whom he called his '' inquisitor," and 
which he accompanied with his treatise entitled Visa et 
cogitata, he refers to science as the child of j^hilosophy, 
and says : 

^' My very good Lord, now your Lordship hath been 
so long in the church and in the palace disputing between 
kings and popes, methinks you should take pleasure to 
look into the field,^ and refresh your mind with some 
matter of philosophy, though that science be now through 

^ As to this swaddling of infancy Bacon again says : " For it is 
most true that a discour:^er of Italy sailh : ' There was never state so 
well swaddled in the infancy as the Roman was, by the virtue of their 
first kings.' " (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 860.) 

2 Promus, 675. When thrift is in the field he is in the town. 



92 • INTRODUCTION-. 

age, waxed a child again,' and left to boys and young men ; 
and because you were wont to make me believe you took 
liking to my writings, I send you some of this vacation 
fruit, and thus much more of my mind and purpose. I 
hasten not to publish ; perishing I would prevent. And 
I am forced to respect as well my times as the matter. 
For with me it is thus, and I think with all men in my 
case,"* if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my 
mind ; but if I rid my mind of the present cogitation, it 
is rather a recreation. This hath put me into these mis- 
cellanies,' which I propose to suppress, if God give me 
leave to write a just and perfect volume of philosophy, 
which I go on with, though slowly. I send not your 
Lordsliip too much, lest it may glut you. Now let me tell 
you what my desire is. If your Lordship be so good now 
as when you were the good Dean of Westminster, my re- 
quest to you is, that not by pricks,* but by notes, you 
would mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto you 

The words "field " and " town" are important in the unmasking. 
Note them in the plays and in The Pilgrim's Progress. They will 
later be called under review. 

^ " Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern ; and you too ; — at each ear a 
hearer : that great baby, you see there, is not yet out of his swad- 
dling clouts. 

" Ros. Haply, he's the second time come to them ; for, they say, 
an old man is twice a child." 

■^ Note throughout a constant and distinctive use of the word " case, " 
and in exclusion to like or synonymous words. In The Pilgrim's 
Progress, p. 275, we have : " Alas to be in my case, who that so was 
couid but have done so ?" And again, p. 345, we have : " But when 
he was come at the river where was no bridge, there again he was in 
a heavy case." In "As You Like It," Act v., sc. 4, p. 255, we 
have : " What a case am I in, then, that am neither a good epilogue 
nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play ?" 

3 One branch of the Harleian collection was distinguished as the 
" Harleian Miscellanies." 

■* This word " pricks" we find even in the youthful treatise the 
Anatomy of Abuses, where, at p. 201, we have : " Plutarch com- 
plaineth of music, and saith that it doth rather effeminate the mind 
as pricks into vice, than conduce to godliness as spurs unto virtue." 
Let the reader now particularly note this word as used in the 
Greek play Troilus and Crcssida, Act i., sc. 3, p. 404, and where 
we have : 

" And in such indexes, although small pricks 
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen 
The baby figure of the giant mass 
Of things to come at large." 



INTRODUCTION. 93 

either not current in the style, or harsh to credit and opin- 
ion, or inconvenient for the person of the writer ; for no 
man can be judge and party, and when our minds judge 
by reflection' on ourselves they are more subject to error. 
And though for the matter itself my judgment be in some 
things fixed, and not accessible by any man's judgment 
that goeth not my way, yet even in those things the ad- 
monition of a friend may make me express myself diversely. 
I would have come to your Lordship but that I am hasten- 
ing to my house in the country. And so I commend your 
Lordship to God's goodness." (Works, vol. iii., p. 30.) 

Bacon's Natural History, as we have seen, was to be the 
nurse, the bosom to philosophy, and here we have the babe. 

In the play the babe is not yet out of these miscellanies, 
its swaddling clouts ; while in the letter to Mathews in 
1605 it has been taught to go. Concerning this swaddling 
of truth, the author of The Pilgrim's Progress, in his 
apology for his book, says : 

" Come, truth, althougli in swaddling clothes I find, 
Informs the judgment, rectifies the mind ; 
Pleases the understanding, makes the will 
Submit ; the memory too it doth fill 
With what doth our imagination please ; 
Likewise it tends our troubles to appease." 

In vol. i., p. 31, of the Anatomy of Melancholy, we 
have : *' They play with babies of clouts and such toys, 
we with greater babies." ^ 

' " And, since you know you cannot see yourself 
So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 
A¥ill modestly discover to yourself 
That of yourself which you yet know not of," 

— Julius Caesar, Act i., sc. 2, p. 335. 

2 Promus, 356. (Like as children do with their babies [dolls] ; 
when they have played enough with them, they take sport to undo 
them.) Bacon in 1615, concerning Salisbury's great scheme for 
revenue, hereafter to be considered, among other things says : " And 
afterward either out of variety, or having met with somewhat that 
he looked not for, or otherwise having made use of the opinion, in 
the end undid his baby that he had made — then grew the change." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 179.) We would have the reader par- 
ticularly note the words "undo" and "undone" as spread in the 
narrational portions of this literature, as well as in the plays. 
It will be found many times used in The Pilgrim's Progress, and 
on p. 274 we have: " I had much ado to forbear crying out. Un- 
done." 



94 INTRODUCTION. 

But again, one of the chief ends in view, we think, in 
this typical play may he found in Horatio's speech in 
Act i., sc. 1, p. 202, concerning the state of Rome : " A 
little ere the mightiest Julius fell," and which state was 
" prologue to the omen coming on." 

Bacon early, as at the close of his work, had much fear 
for the Reformed faith, as we shall see ; and not merely 
from Rome, but from influences with which pagan forms 
had already tainted it. After the parties in the play were 
sworn that they would in no way disclose Hamlet or his 
methods, he then -says to them : " The times are out of 
joint ; cursed spite ! that ever I was born to set it 
right." 

Julius here referred to was Pope of Rome from 337 to 352, 
and during the same period Julian the Apostate was em- 
peror, who, as against the Christian faith, became a con- 
vert to paganism through an acquired love for the Greek 
forms and philosophy, and which much tainted the early 
Church. Bacon set himself not merely to stay, but to 
undo some of those influences, and which he doubtless 
thought his work would accomplish, as in due time will, 
we think, appear. Note the reference in the play to 
Wittenberg, the door, as it were, of the Reformation ; and 
where Horatio and Marcellus as well as Hamlet are repre- 
sented as students or school-fellows.' By his philosophy, 
however, there was now to be a course new mapped. One 
slow, silent, deep laid, and which was to be telling only 
in its outcome or issues. 

Though space will not permit an elaboration here of 
this particular feature of the play, we may still indicate 
thus much. 

In no country of Europe was the Reformed faith intro- 
duced with more ease and less blood than in Denmark. 
In 1018 Canute the Great became King of England as well 
as Denmark, and he resided generally in England. The 
Danish dynasty came to a close in England, however, in 
1042 for want of male heirs. In 1219 the Danish King 
Valdemar the Second set out upon a vast crusade against 
the pagans in Esthonia, and the whole was forcibly over- 
run and the inhabitants converted. By earlier con- 

^ Later we shall call the word " fellows" under review, and the 
word " school-fellow" will be found used in these writings wher- 
ever occasion presents. 



IKTRODUCTIO]^. 95 

quests his authority had become recognized over a large 
portion of Northern Germany. Bacon had ever his fore- 
finger upon the world's pulse ecclesiastic, and was watch- 
ful in this regard to the entire governmental influences of 
the world, and with its globe, as it were, beneath his eye. 
Denmark or the Danish crown had at this time control of 
both sides of the entrance to the Baltic Sea, and the sound 
was regarded as its own, and the world's mercantile vessels 
were required to pay tribute or toll in their passage. At 
the writing of this play there were influences both within 
and without England which Bacon much feared should 
Denmark, with its mentioned natural advantages, fall under 
control of the Catholic powders of Europe. In the north 
of England most of the people at this time, as well as the 
lords, longed to see the restoration of the Koman faith 
and the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots claimed, in Eliza- 
beth's stead, to be the rightful heir to the English throne. 
Therefore, when Hamlet was mad, he was "mad north- 
northwest." 

These features, however, concern but the outer circle of 
this piece of foreshadowed work. More properly we may 
say, perhaps, that the state of man by nature is the outer 
circle, and that these features fall next within it. 

The value set by Bacon upon his babe, his offspring of 
science, may in a measure be seen in his dedicatory letter 
to King James, of the Novum Organum, in 1620 (Works, 
vol. iii., p. 333), and which opens in these words : 

*' Your Majesty will, perhaps, accuse me of theft, in 
that I have stolen^ from your employments time sufficient 
for this work. I have no reply, for there can be no restitu- 
tion of time, unless, perhaps, that which has been with- 
drawn from your affairs might be set down as devoted to 
the perpetuating of your name and to the honour of your 
age were what I now offer of any value. It is at least 
new, even in its very nature, but copied from a very an- 
cient pattern, no other than the world itself, and the 
nature of things, and of the mind. I myself (ingeniously 
to confess the truth) am wont to value this work rather as 
the offspring of time than of wit ; for the only wonderful 

^ This use of the word " stolen" as applied to time may be found 
in many of these "writings. In Measure for Measure, Act iii., sc. 1, 
p. 74, we have : " I have no superfluous leisure ; my stay must he 
stolen out of other affairs ; hut I will attend you a while." 



96 INTRODUCTION. 

circumstance in it is, that the first conception of the mat- 
ter, and so deep suspicions of prevalent notions should 
ever have entered into any person's mind ; the conse- 
quences follow. But, doubtless, there is naturally a chance 
(as we call it), and something, as it were, accidental in 
man's thoughts, no less than in his actions and words. 
I would have this chance, however (of which I am speak- 
ing), to be so understood that if there be any merit in 
what I offer, it should be attributed to the immeasurable 
mercy and bounty of God and to the felicity^ of this your 
age ; to which felicity I have devoted myself whilst living 
with the sincerest zeal, and I shall, perhaps, before my 
death have rendered the age a light unto posterity, by 
kindling this new torch amid the darkness of philoso])hy. " 

And upon sending a copy of the work to his friend 
Mathew (p. 71, same volume), he says : 

" And I must confess my desire to be, that my writings 
should not court the present time, or some few places in 
such sorts as might make them either less general to per- 
sons or less permanent in future ages. As to the Instau- 
ration, your so full approbation thereof I read with much 
comfort, by how much more my heart is upon it, and 
by how much less I expected consent and concurrence in 
matters so obscure. Of this I can assure you, that though 
many things of great hope decay witli youth (and multi- 
tude of civil business is wont to diminish the price though 
not the delight of contemplation), yet the proceeding in 
that work doth gain with me upon my affection and de- 
sire both by years and business. And, therefore, I hope 
even by this that it is well pleasing to Grod, from whom 
and to whom all good moves. To him I most heartily 
commend you." 

And in the following so-called Shakespeare Sonnet (59), 
and to which we invite careful thought, a comparison is in- 
ferred between his own philosophy and that then extant, 
or that of the Greeks ; and wherein he breathes the wish, 
that when "five hundred courses of the sun" shall have 
rolled away he might be then present to see what the world 
would say of his work, his child, his philosophy. He says : 

^ In the A. D. B. Mask we, p. 27, have: "Obedience is the 
mother of felicity." Let tliis word be noted tliroughout, as also the 
here used words " kindle" and " torch," And note in all of these 
writings this ever-fixed eye upon posterity. 



INTRODUCTION". 97 

" If there be nothing new, but that which is 
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, 
Which, labouring for inv^ention, bear amiss 
The second burthen of a former chikl ?^ 
O ! that record couhl with a backward look, 
Even of five hundred courses of the sun, 
Show me your image in some antique book. 
Since mind at first in character was done ! 
Tliat I might see what the old world could say 
To this composed wonder of your frame ; 
Whether we're mended, or wliere better they, 
Or whether revolution be the same. 
O ! sure I am,^ the wits of former days 
To subjects worse have given admiring praise." 

Bacon, as to these five hundred years, says : ''AH the 
philosophy of nature which is now received is either the 
philosophy of the Grecians or that other of the alchemists. 
That of the Greeks hath the foundations in words, in 
ostentation, in confutation, in sects, in schools, in dis- 
putations. The Grecians were, as one of themselves saith, 
'you Grecians, ever children.' They knew little an- 
tiquity ; they knew, except fables, not much above five 
hundred years before themselves. They knew but a small 
portion of the world. That of the alchemists hath the 

^ Bacon says : "But things too ancient wax children with us 
again." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 66.) 

'^ As to the expression " sure I am" Bacon says : " But sure I am 
the argument is good, if it had lighted upon a good author." (Ba- 
con's Letters, vol. iii., p. 254.) While king's attorney in 1616, he 
writes thus to Buckingliani : " The times I submit to you, who know 
them best ; but sure I am, there were never times which did more 
require a King's attorney to be well armed, and (as I once said to you) 
to wear a gauntlet and not a glove." (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 260.) 
And in vol. ii. of said Letters, p. 86, we have : " Sure I am that 
the treasure that cometh from you to her Majesty is but as a vapour 
which riseth from the earth and gathereth into a cloud, and stayeth 
not there long but upon the same earth it falleth again ; and wliat 
if some drops of this do fall upon France or Flanders ?" This 
expression was quite frequent with Bacon, And in the Anatomy 
of Abuses, p. 74, we have : " But, howsoever it falleth out, sure I 
am they are ensigns of pride, allurements to sin, and provocations 
to vice." In Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 246, the Queen says : 

** Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you ; 
And, sure I am, two men there are not living, to whom he more 
adheres." 

Very much more might be introduced upon all of these points did 
space permit. And many points might be made which are not 
made for like reason. 

4 



98 INTRODUCTIOX. 

foundation in impostnre, in auricular traditions and ob- 
scurity. It was catching hold of religion, but the prin- 
ciple of it is Populu vult decipi. So that I know no great 
difference between these great philosophies, but that the 
one is a loud crying folly, and the other is a whispering 
folly." See likewise Aphs. 78, 122, 125, Book 1 of the 
Novum Organum. 

In a letter to Mr. Mathew, in 1609, he says : " Nay it 
doth more fully lay open that the question between me 
and the ancients is not the virtue of the race, but the 
rightness of the way." 

As to the words " Since mind at first in character was 
done," see Bacon's thoughts, p. 73 of this work. 

The word "old" in this sonnet in the expression 
" What the old world would say" is used in its distinctive 
and Baconian sense, and explained by Bacon in Aph. 84, 
Book 1 of the Novum Organum thus : " The opinion 
which men cherish of antiquity is altogether idle^, and 
scarcely accords with the term. For the old age and in- 
creasing years of the world should in reality be considered 
as antiquity, and that is rather the character of our own 
times than of the less advanced age of the world in those 
of the ancients ; for the latter with respect to ourselves 
are ancient and elder, with respect to the world modern 
and younger.* And as we expect a greater knowledge of 
human affairs and more mature judgment from an old 
man than from a youth, on account of his experience and 
the variety and number of things he has seen, heard, and 
meditated upon, so we have reason to expect much greater 
things of our own age (if it knew but its strength and 
would essay and exert it) than from antiquity, since the 
world has grown older and its stock has been increased 
and accumulated with an infinite number of experiments 
and observations." 

AVe shall therefore claim to the reader, that this sonnet 
refers to philosophy, that it refers to a distinctive philoso- 
phy, that it refers to The Great Instauration ; and that 
its word " old " is used in this Baconian sense, as are also 
the words " antique book." 

We have here a wonder referred to, a composed wonder, 
*'the composed wonder of your frame," and that frame 

' Promus, 1268. (Things old to us were ntw to men of old.) 



IXTRODUCTIOis'. 99 

the frame of nature, or the world. See Bacon's letter to 
King James, p. 95. 

Note the use of the word '' frame" throughout this liter- 
ature. Bacon says : "It is certain that of all powers in 
nature heat is the chief both in the frame of nature and 
in the works of art." ^ (Works, vol. ii., p. 23.) 

Already have we seen that Lord Bacon set great value 
upon his love, his child of philosophy, his Instauration ; 
and so in Sonnets 124 and 125 and pending the ruin of his 
name, he says : 

" If my dear love were but the child of state, 
It might for fortune's bastard be unfather'd, 
As subject to time's love or to time's hate, 
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. 
No, it was builded far from accident ; 
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls 
Under the blow of thralled discontent. 
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : 
It fears not policy, that heretic, 
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours ; 
But all alone stands hugely politic, 
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. 
To this I witness call the fools of time, 
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime." 

" Were't aught to me I bore the canopy. 
With my extern"^ the outward honouring, 
Or laid great basis for eternity, 
Which prove more short than waste or ruining ? 
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour 
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent ; 
For compound sweet foregoing simple savour. 
Pitiful thrivers m their gazing spent ? 
No ; let me be obsequious in thy heart, 
And take thou my oblation, poor but free. 
Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, 
But mutual render, only me for thee. 
Hence, thou suborn 'd informer ! a true soul. 
When most impeach 'd, stands least in thy control." 

Note in this last sonnet and for future reference the words 

' In Much Ado About Nothing, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 217, we have : 
" Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame ? 

In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 295, we have : 

" Good, my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start 
not so wildly from my affair." 

'^ See Bacon's use of this word extern, p. 8G. 



100 INTRODUCTION". 

" I bore the canopy" and the words '^ suborned informer," 
also the word " oblation," directed to the king. 

In Sonnet 122 the words " thy tables are within my 
brain" refer, as we shall claim, to the tables of the Instau- 
ration, to which all else in his system is subservient. He 
says : 

" Tliy gift,^ thy tables,^ are within my brain 

Full character'd with lasting memory, 

Which shall above that idle rank remain 

Beyond all date, even to eternity ; 

Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart 

Have faculty by nature to subsist : 

Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part 

Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. 

That poor retention could not so much hold, 

Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score ; 

Therefore to give them from me was I bold. 

To trust those tables that receive thee more : 

To keep an adjunct to remember thee. 

Were to import forgetfulness in me." 

He says in this sonnet, that until these tables, as well as 
his brain, have '' to raz'd oblivion" yielded their part, his 
record cannot be missed. 

If it be asked why he permitted himself to be submerged 
without a defence, the ansv/er may in part appear in Son- 
net 121, but more fully when relation facts are made to 
appear. In this sonnet he says : 

" 'Tis better to be vile, than vile esteem'd. 
When not to be receives reproach of being ; 
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd, 
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing : 

^ Bacon realized that he had unusual gifts, as will later appear in a 
noted prayer by him at this period. 
^ In Hamlet, Act i., sc. 5, p. 235, we have: 

" Remember thee ? 
Yea, from the tables of my memory 
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records," etc. 

Bacon says: "In tables, unless you erase what has before been 
written, you can write nothing else. But in the mind, on the con- 
trary, unless you inscribe something else, you cannot erase what has 
before been written." (Works, vol. ii., p. 549.) And from some private 
memoranda by Bacon we have : " To take notes in Tables when I 
attend y^ counsell, and sometymes to moove owt of a Memorial! 
hewd and seen. " (Bacon's Letters, vol. iv. , p. 93.) And see the tables 
of the Instauration, 



INTRODUCTION. 101 

For why should others' false adulterate eyes 

Give salutalion to my sportive blood ? 

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies. 

Which in their wills count bad what I think good ? 

No, I am that I am ; and they that leveP 

At my abuses, reckon up their own : 

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel. 

By tiieir rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown ; 

Unless this general evil they maintain,— 

All men are bad, and in their badness reign." 

And what official position did William Shakespeare hold 
to permit a levelling at his abuses ? 

But Bacon became self- condemnatory, as may be seen 
in Sonnet 62. He says : 

" Sin of "self-love possesseth all mine eye, 
And all my soul, and all my every part ; 
And for this sin there is no remedy. 
It is so grounded inward in my heart. 
Methinks, no face so giacious is as mine. 
No shape so true, no truth of such account ; 
And for myself mine own worth do define, 
As I all other in all worths surmount. 
But when my glass shows me myself indeed. 
Bated and chapp'd with tann'd antiquity. 
Mine own self-love^ quite contrary I read ; 
Self so self-loving were iniquity. 
'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise, 
Painting my age with beauty of thy days." 

Had William Shakespeare felt thus as to his work, 
would he have gone to his grave as he did in 1616, without 
the slightest preparation made to perpetuate his writings? 
By the words " thee," " thy," and " thou" the author of 
the sonnets often alluded to himself, as may be distinctly 
seen in this sonnet, and to which end chiefly we quote it. 

Pending his troubles, Bacon goes down to his old home 
at Gorhambury, and there : 1. Slakes his will, wherein he 
says : *' For my name and memory I leave it to men's 
charitable speeches to foreign nations, and to the next 
ages ; and 2. He composed a notable prayer, in which, 
among other things that had l>een uppermost in his 
thoughts, says : " I have hated all crueltj^ and hardness of 

^ Bacon says : " That which I level at is your standing and great- 
ness, which nevertheless I hold for a main pillar for the K's service." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 442.) 

^ Note Bacon's use of the word " self-love" in his noted letter to 
Lord Burghley, p. 24. 



102 INTRODUCTION-. 

heart ; I have (though in a despised weed) procured the 
good of all men." ' (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 229.) 

In what, please, did this " weed" consist, wherein he had 
procured the good of all men ? Was it his mask or masks, 
or was it but his Shakespeare cover or mask ? In Sonnet 
76 he of this " weed" says : 

" Why is my verse so barren of new pride, 

So far from variation or quick change ? 

Why, with the time do I not glance aside 

To new-found methods and to compounds strange ? 

Why write I still all one, ever the same. 

And keep invention in a noted weed. 

That every word doth almost tell my name,' 

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed ? 

! know, sweet love, I always write of you. 

And you and love are still my argument ; 

So, all my best is dressing old words new, 

Spending again what is already spent : 

For as the sun is daily new and old. 

So is my love still telling what is told." 

Do the words *' though in a despised weed " in the men- 
tioned prayer, and the words " keep invention in a noted 
weed " in this sonnet, have any covert meaning? And are 
they not used in the same covert sense in each expression ? 
And what occasion had William Shakespeare to keep in- 
vention in a noted weed ? Were not the plays and sonnets 
put forth in his name ? 

But this use of the word " weed " as a cover, was dis- 
tinctly Baconian. Keferring in his speech in the Essex 
trial to the flight of the French king, caused by the 
uprising of the Duke of Guise, he says : " The king was 
forced to put himself into a pilgrim's weed,^ and in that 
disguise stole away to escape their fury." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. ii., p. 230.) 

In his History of Henry the Seventh he says : " This 
fellow, when Perkin took sanctuary, chose rather to take 
a holy habit than a holy place, and clad himself like a 

' This prayer will be found in full later in the work. 

^ How true this statement ! We may almost see his physiognomy 
in some of them. 

2 In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 372, we have : " Then said Mr. 
Darenotlie, 'Tis true ; they have neither the pilgrim's weed nor the 
pilgrim's courage ; they go not uprightly, but all awry with their 
feet ; one shoe goeth inward, another outward ; and their hosen are 
out behind : here a rag, and there a rent, to the disparagement of 
their Lord." 



INTRODUCTION. 103 

hermit, and in that weed wandered about the country till 
he was discovered and taken." (Works, vol. i., p. 367.) 

And concerning apparel and the philosopher's weed, we 
in the youthful treatise, the Anatomy of Abuses, p. 33. 
have : 

" Diogenes so much contemned ^ sumptuous attire, that 
he chose rather to dwell in wilderness among brute beasts 
all his life long, than in the pompous courts of mighty 
kings one day to be cormorant ; for he thought if he had 
the ornaments of the mind, that he was then fair enough, 
and fine enough also, not needing any more. A certain 
other philosopher addressed himself towards a king's court 
in his philosopher's attire, that is, in mean, base, and poor 
array ; but so soon as the officers espied him, they cried. 
Away with that rogue ; what doth he so nigh the king's 
majesty's court? The poor philosopher, seeing it lighten 
so fast, retired back, for fear of their thunderclaps, and 
repairing home, apparelled himself in rich attire, and 
came again marching towards the court ; he was no sooner 
in sight but every one received him plausibly, and with 
great submission and reverence. When he came in pres- 
ence of the king and other mighty potentates, he, kneeling 
down, ceased not^ to kiss his garments. The king and 
nobles marveling not a little thereat, asked him wherefore 
he did so ? who answered, noble king, it is no marvel, ' 
for that which my virtue and knowledge could not do, my 
apparel hath brought to pass ; for I coming to thy 
gates in my philosopher's weed, was repelled, but having 

^ Note throughout these writings this oft-used word " contemn." 

2 It seems as though one might ahnost prove these writings by the 
unusual placing of this word "not." Notice it throughout, and 
particularly in the plays. 

Promus, 540. {Take not up ichat thou layedst not down. See 
Luke xix. 21.) Promus, 557. {Hills meet not.) Promus, 649. It 
may rhyme, but it accords not. Promus, 1128. He that outleaps 
his strength standeth not. Bacon says in a letter to Mr. Mathew in 
1609 : " I have sent you some copies of my book of the Admncement, 
which you desired ; and a little work of my recreation, which you 
desired not. My Instauratioii I reserve for your conference ; it 
sleeps not." In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 276, we have : " Then, 
said Mercy, I confess my ignorance ; I spake what I understood not ; 
I acknowledge that thou doest all things well." In Much Ado 
About Nothing, Act v., sc. 2, p. 241, we have : "And yours as blunt 
as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not." 

^ Note the use of the word "marvel" in every phase of these 
writings. 



104 INTRODUCTION. 

put upon me this ricli attire, I was brought to thy pres- 
ence with as great veneration and worship as could be." 

Referring, subsequent to his troubles, to efforts made to 
submerge his great life work by the ruin of his name, here- 
after to be considered, he in Sonnet 107 alludes to him- 
self as the " mortal moon," and hence the first part of 
our title to this work ; and declares that his thought shall 
at least live in these masked lines, and tlience his monu- 
ment, though death may " insult o'er dull and speechless 
tribes" — that is, tribes tbrough dullness in not discerning 
the true facts, and hence " speechless" as to the honor 
due his name. He says : 

" J^ot mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, 
Can yet the lease of my true love control, 
Suppos'd as forfeit to a contin'd doom. 
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd. 
And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; 
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, 
And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes ; 
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, 
While he insults o'er' dull and speechless tribes ; 
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, 
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent." 

And see Sonnet 19. To what circumstances in the life 
of William Shakespeare can the foregoing sonnet be said 
to alhide ? In the brief sketch of Lord Bacon's life by his 

' In the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii., p. 325. it is said that 
"love triumphs, contemns, insults over death itself." Bacon, in 
speaking of the heavens, makes mention of " the violence and in- 
sult of a contrary body." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 477.) In his 
expostulatory letter to Coke he says : "As in your pleadings you 
were wont to insult over misery, and to inveigh bitterly at the 
persons, which bred you many enemies, whose poison j^et swell- 
eth and the effects now appear, so are you still wont to be a little 
careless in this point, to praise or disgrace upon slight grounds, and 
that sometimes untruly ; so that your reproofs or commendations 
are for the most part neglected and contemned ; when the censure 
of a judge, coming slow and sure, should be a brand to the guilty 
and a crown to the virtuous. " (Works, vol. ii., p. 486.) In Addison, 
vol. iii., p. 27, we have : "There are many who take a kind of 
barbarous pleasure in the jealousy of those who love them, that 
insult over an aching heart, and triumph in their charms which are 
able to excite so much uneasiness. " This expression " insult over" is 
also used by Defoe. See note 2, p. 50. 



INTRODUCTION. 105 

chaplain, Dr. Rawley, though evidently composed chiefly 
by Bacon himself, we have : " It may seem the moon had 
some principal place in the figure of his nativity ; for the 
moon was never in her passion, or eclipsed, but he was 
surprised with a sudden fit of fainting ; and that though 
he observed not nor took any previous knowledge of the 
eclipse thereof ; and as soon as the eclipse ceased, he was 
restored to his former strength again." (Phil. Works, 
vol. i., p. 17.) Later we may have occasion to refer to 
the cloaked arrangement of the sonnets. 

While in Sonnet I'Zd he says the records do lie, he still 
defers them, thus : 

" No ! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change : 
Thy pyramids, built up with newer might, 
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange ; 
They are but dressings of a former sight. 
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire 
What thoij dost foist upon us that is old, 
And rather make them born to our desire, 
Than think that we before have heard them told. 
Thy registers and thee I both defy. 
Not wondering at the present nor the past ; 
For thy records and what we see do lie,^ 
Made more or less by thy continual haste ;"^ 
This I do vow, and this shall ever be, — 
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee." 

And see Sonnet 119, p. 28 of this work. 

Bacon sought for liimself, for his work, for his love, 
protection from the injuries of time ; or, as stated in Sonnet 
63, from " confounding age's cruel knife." He says : 

" Against my love shall be, as I am now, 
With time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn ; 
When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow 
With lines and wrinkles ; when his youthful morn 
Hath Iravell'd on to age's steepy night ; 
And all those beauties whereof now^ he's king. 
Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, 
Stealing away the treasure of his spring : — 
For such a time do I now fortify 
Against confounding age's cruel knife, 

' And in Sonnet 65 he says ; 

" O fearful meditation ! where, alack ! 
Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid ?" 

"^ We find Bacon speaking of his " unhappy slowness" and of his 
" breaking the order of time," etc. 



106 INTRODUCTION. 

That he shall never cut from memory 
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life : 
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen ; 
And they shall live, and he in them still green. "^ 

Bacon in his article entitled Of the Interpretation of 
Nature (Works, vol. ii., p. 550), says : " And from the 
injuries of time^ I am almost secure ; but for the injuries 
of men I am not concerned." And hoAV was he secure? 
Had he made provisions in this direction ? 

In a letter to his friend Mathew, following his troubles, 
he says : " It is true my labours are now more set to have 
those works which I have formerly published, as that of 
Advancement of Learning, that of Ilenry VII., that of 
the Essays, being retractate and made more perfect, well 
translated into Latin by the help of some good pens, which 
forsake me not. For these modern languages will, at one 
time or other, play the bankruptcy with books ; and since 
I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as 
God shall give me leave,^ to recover it with posterity." 

* And see Sonnets 55 and 64. Bacon says : " The monuments of 
wit survive the monuments of power : the verses of a poet endure 
without a syllable lost, while states and empires pass many periods." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 379.) 

2 And in Addison, vol. vi., p. 684, we have : 

" Can neither injuries of time, or age. 
Damp thy poetic heat, or quench thy rage ? 
Kot so thy Ovid in his exile wrote. 
Grief chill'd Ids breast, and check'd Ms rising thought ; 
Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays 
The Roman genius in its last decays." 

3 We would here have the reader particularly note Bacon's suave 
and oft-used expression " give me leave" and changes rung upon 
it, as " he gave himself leave," etc. Note it everywhere in this lit- 
erature, and particularly in the plays. We even find it several times 
used in The Pilgrim's Progress. At p. 311 of that work we have : 
" For you must give me leave to tell you that I believe it was a good 
dream ; and that as you have begun to find the first part true, so 
you shall find the second at last." In the Winter's Tale, Act v., sc. 
3, p. 136, we have : 

" Per. And give me leave, 

And do not say 'tis superstition, that 
I kneel, and then implore her blessing." 

In Addison, vol. iii., p. 202, we have : "The limits of my paper 
will not give me leave to be particular in instances of this kind ; the 
reader will easily remark them in his perusal of the poem." 



INTRODUCTION. 107 

And be ends the letter thus : '^ For the great business, 
God conduct it well. Mine own fortune hath taught me 
expectation." (Works, vol. iii., p. 151.) Let these sonnets 
be viewed, please, in the light of Bacon's thoughts touching 
the Handing on of the Lamp to Posterity. 

To Gondomar, subsequent to his fall and on June 6th, 
1621 (Works, vol. iii., p. 216), Bacon writes : " Now that 
at once my age, my fortunes, and my genius, to which 
I have hitherto done but scarcely justice, call me from the 
stage of life, I shall devote myself to letters, instruct the 
actors on it, and serve posterity.^ In such a course I shall, 
perhaps, find honour. And I shall thus pass my life as 
within the verge of a better." In this connection, please, 
see Sonnets 100, 101, and the close of ch. 3, Book 8 of 
the De Augmentis. 

Bacon's intention, early formed, of throwing or shaking 
a spear at human foibles, combined with the fact that 
there was then upon the English stage one bearing the 
name which these two words " shake" and " spear" to- 
gether make, made it, doubtless, the safest mask by name 
which he could well have assumed and it still be significant 
of his purposes in it. And we see no great mystery in 
this, and certainly not so great a one as to suppose that 
the untutored Shakespeare should have possessed not 
merely spontaneous wealth of thought, but concededly the 
widest and richest vocabulary in the language. Spontane- 
ity, whatever else it may do, will not yield this. Nor will 
it yield that encyclopaedic range of knowledge spread 
throughout the plays touching Scripture, history, geogra- 
phy, law, literature, art, science, and philosophy, to say 
nothing as to that displayed concerning the customs of 
courts of princes. 

Richard Grant White concerning Shakespeare says : 
** The entire range of human knowledge must be laid 
under contribution to illustrate his writings." Are we, 
then, to believe that the plays are centred in miracle? 

Bacon sought a mask : 1. That he might be free in his 
utterances. 2. Being the son of a noted English chancel- 
lor, he did not wish to be known as a playwright. And is 
there any mystery here ? 

^ Did he instruct the actors ? yea, did he prepare their parts ? 
We shall see. , , 



108 INTRODUCTION. 

Eead the introduction to the Anatomy of Melancholy as 
to the reasons for assuming a mask. The spear here 
thrown, as also in the plays, made a mask necessary to 
him. On p. 112 of that work it is said : " Object then 
and cavil what thou wilt, I ward all with Democritus 
buckler ; his medicine shall salve^ it ; strike where thou 
wilt and when: Democritus dixit; Democritus will an- 
swer all." 

But the chief mystery seems to be that Bacon's own age 
should not generally have been cognizant of these facts, 
and that he should have been willing to die without dis- 
closing them. There were, indeed, those of his own day 
who believed him to be the author of the plays, but they 
could not prove it, and what particular inducement had 
they to try, more than if the same were to take place as to 
some author of our own day ? The secret organization or 
company through which Bacon operated, and through 
which the Phoenix First Folio of 1623 was doubtless put 
forth (and under Bacon's own eye, as we shall claim), fell 
probably within the mask, and hence the ease of conceal- 
ment.'-^ We may thus see how so many important changes 
and additions to the plays found in the Great First Folio, 
and not found in them as originally written, as well as im- 
portant matter stricken therefrom, came about. 

We will not say that the following lines from the Defoe 
History of the Devil, p. 502, point to the mask, but will 
submit them for the reader's consideration. 

" In short, it would make a merry world among us if we 
could but enter upon some proper method of such dis- 
criminations ; but Lawr'd what a hurricane would it raise, 
if like , who they say scourged the Devil so often that 

^ Already have we alluded to Bacon's use of the words " salve" 
and " plaster" as tigures of speech. He says : "And it is not your 
interlacing of your ' God forbid ' that will salve these seditious 
speeches ; neither could it be a foie warning, because the matter was 
past and not revokable ; but a very stirring up and incensing of the 
people." (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 145.) Addison, vol. v., p. 239, 
says : " I am not unaware that it will be said that tlio frequent ex- 
tinctions of families will salve this inconvenience, and make room 
for the rewarding of merit." In the A. D. B. Mask. p. 21, we have 
the expression " sovereign cure ;" and in the Venus and Adonis, 
" Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good." 

2 Even the Masonic institution has been thought by some to have 
been co-ordinated or revived by Bacon from out the records of the 
past. 



INTRODUCTION. 100 

he durst not come near him in any shape whatever, we 
could find some new method out to make the Devil un- 
mask ; like the angel Uriel, who, Mr. Milton says, had an 
enchanted spear, with which if he did but touch the Devil, 
in whatever disguise he had put on, it obliged him im- 
mediately to start up and show himself in his true original 
shape, mere Devil as he was. 

" This would do nicely, and as I, who am originally a 
projector,' have spent some time upon this study, and 
doubt not in a little time to finish my engine, which I am 
contriving, to screw the Devil out of everybody, or any- 
body, I question not when I have brought it to perfec- 
tion but I shall make most excellent discoveries by it ; 
and besides the many extraordinary advantages of it to 
human society, I doubt not but it will make good sport in 
the world, too ; therefore, when I publish my proposals, and 
divide it into shares, as other less useful projects have been 
done, I question not for all the severe act lately passed 
against bubbles, but I shall get subscribers enough," 
etc. 

Do " the several acts" here alluded to relate to some of 
the known acts of Queen Elizabeth against actors ? As to 
dividing the enterprise into shares, Charles Reade in his 
work entitled " The Tenth Commandment," in present- 
ing the question of remuneration for dramatic literary 
work, as between the paid authors and the sharing authors, 
at page 182 says : " These did not write so well as the 
sharers ; it was not in nature they should ; and the above 

^ The words " project" and " engine," as here used, will be found 
constant words in every phase of these writings. And they will be 
found to be somewhat distinctively used. Note the word " engine" 
in our quotation from The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 69, and note the 
oft use of the word "project" in the plays. In The Tempest, Act 
v., sc. 1, p. 91, we have: 

" Pro. Now does my project gather to a head : 
My charms crack not ; my spirits obey ; and time 
Goes upright with his carriage." 

And in the " Epilogue" to the play we have : 

' ' Gentle breath of yours my sails 
Must fill, or else my project fails, 
Which was to please. ' ' 

This was an oft-used word by Bacon, and he even refers to his 
Great Instauration as a project. (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 8.) 



110 INTRODUCTION. 

was not bad pay for their crude and hasty though talented 
compositions. Shakespeare avoided that trap. He was 
paid from the first as the French dramatists are paid now — 
viz., by a share in the receipts in the house. And he 
wrote his best, because that system made it a man's inter- 
est to write his best." 

From the mentioned History of the Devil, p. 458, we 
further quote : 

'* We find the Devil is a true posture-master : he assumes 
any dress, appears in any shape, counterfeits every voice, 
acts upon every stage ; here he wears a gown, there a long 
robe ; here he wears the jack-boots, there the small 
sword ; is here an enthusiast, there a buffoon ; on this 
side he acts the mountebank, on that side the merry- 
andrew ; nothing comes amiss to him, from the Great 
Mogul to the scaramouch ; the Devil is in them, more 
or less, and plays his game so well, that he makes sure 
work with them all : he knows where the common foible 
lies, which is universal passion, what handle' to take hold 
of every man by, and how to cultivate his interest, so as 
not to fail of his end or mistake the means." 

Queries have existed as to why Lord Bacon failed to 
elaborate some system of metaphysics. It will, however, 
be found that he marked off metaphysics from the realm 
of philosophy, and caused it to be enacted in its subtleties 
before the eyes of men, instead of theorizing about it. 
And he here manifests as subtle watchfulness for objective 
material change and appearances, for the forms and shows 
of motives, in his sense of the idols of the den, of the tribe, 
of the market, and of the theatre, as for mere material 

^ "We would have the reader particularly note this distinctively used 
Baconian word " handle," as we shall later have occasion to call it 
under review in connection with his treatment of the subject of 
memorj'- ; and here quote him as follows: "It deceives, secondly, 
in respect of that piinciple of nature, that the decay of one thing 
is the generation of another ; so that the degree of extreme priva- 
tion is sometimes of less disadvantage, because it gives a handle and 
stimulus to some new course." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 466.) And 
in Addison, vol. ii., p. 255, we have : " This I know will be matter 
of greac raillery to the small wits ; who will frequently put me in mind 
of my promise, desire me to keep my word, assure me that it is high 
time to give over, with many other pleasantries of the like nature, 
■vv^hich men of a little smart genius cannot forbear throwing out 
against their best friends, when they have such a handle given them 
of being witt3\" 



INTRODUCTION. Ill 

effects in the realm of physics.^ He nowhere in his writ- 
ings merely theorizes or speculates, but he ever sought in 
effects for fruit. 

The mentioned idols of the den we often find covertly 
alluded to in the plays. In Romeo and Juliet, Act ii., 
so. 4, p. 82, we have : 

" Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen. 
" Mer. God ye good den, fair gentle woman. 
" Nurse. Is it good den ?" 

In Much Ado About Nothing, Act v., sc. 1, p. 229, we 
have : 

" Ant. Here comes the prince, and Claudio. hastily, 
" D. Pedro. Good den, good den. 
" Claud. Good day to both of you." 

In Love's Labor's Lost, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 405, we have : 

" Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. 
" Cost. God dig-you-den all !" 

Our Shakespeare commentators, for want of a better 
clew to this word "den," tell us that it must in some 
places in the plays mean " day" and in other places 
*' even ;" as, God give ye good day, and God give ye good 
even. We must claim to the reader, however, that this is 
a Baconian word, and alludes in its distinct Baconian 
sense to his idols or errors of the den, and the expression 
to mean, God give ye a good inner state of heart, life, 
mind, etc. 

The expression in the last example, '* God dig-you- 
den all," Hudson says is " a corruption of God give ye 
good even." But the meaning which we draw from the 
words is, that the corrupt den of them all needs to be dug 
or renovated. As between these interpretations the reader 
must judge. 

* Bacon says : " Knowledge of men may be derived and obtained 
in six ways : by their coimtenaaces and expressions, their words, 
their actions, their dispositions, their ends and, lastly, by the reports 
of others. With regard to the countenance, be' not influenced by the 
old adage, ' Trust not a man's face ; ' for though this may not be 
wrongly said of the general outward carriage of the face and action, 
yet there are some more subtle motions and labours of the eyes, 
mouth, countenance, and gesture by which (as Q. Cicero elegantly 
expressed it), the ' door of the mind ' is unlocked and opened." (De 
Augmentis, ch. ii., Book 8.) 



112 INTRODUCTION. 

Concerning metaphysics, Bacon, in his already mentioned 
letter at p. 64, says : 

'* I have read your letter with pleasure ; and since be- 
tween lo\^ers of truth ardour begets candour, I will return 
to your ingenious questions an ingenious reply. 

'' I do not propose to give up syllogism altogether. Syl- 
logism is incompetent for the principal things rather than 
useless for the generality. 

" In the mathematics there is no reason why it should 
not be employed. It is the flux of matter and the incon- 
stancy of the physical body which requires Induction ; 
that thereby it may be fixed, as it were, and allowed the 
formation of notions well defined. 

" Be not troubled about Metaphysics.' When true 
Physics have been discovered, there will be no Metaphysics. 
Beyond the true Physics is divinity only." * 

And so in Aph. 127, Book 1 of the Novum Organum 
he says : " And as common logic, which regulates matters 
by syllogisms, is applied not only to natural, but also to 
every other science, so our inductive method likewise com- 
prehends them all. For we form a history and tables of 
invention for anger, fear, shame, and the like, and also 
for examples in civil life, and the mental operations of 
memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest, as 
well as for heat and cold, light, vegetation, and the like. 
But since our method of interpretation, after preparing 
and arranging a history, does not content itself with ex- 
amining the operations and disquisitions of the mind like 
common logic, but also inspects the nature of things, we 
so regulate the mind that it may be enabled to apply itself 
in every respect correctly to that nature. On that account 
we deliver numerous and various precepts in our doctrine 
of interpretation, so that they may apply in some measure 
to the method of discovering the quality and condition of 
the subject-matter of investigation." 

Here, as in many places in his writings, we are reminded 
that there are no common grounds even for comparison 
between Bacon's tabular methods and those extant, his 

' Swift says : ** With regard to metaphysics, they looii upon the 
entire subject as the baseless fabric of a vision." (Gulliver's Travels, 
p. 125.) 

■^ And so, again, may we see why Bacon had not words for mental, 
and others for material things. 



INTRODUCTION. 113 

being, as ifc were, mechanical, and grounded, not upon 
speculative thoughts or theories of logic, but wholly upon 
material changes as viewed through his system. Concern- 
ing other systems he says : *' And, besides, so many and so 
vast are the troops^ of errors which present themselves, 
that we must overthrow and dislodge them, not in close 
detail but in mass ; and if we would draw near unto them, 
and try conclusions, hand to hand with each of them in- 
dividually, it were in vain ; the rule of all reasoning be 
set aside, differing as we do from them in our principles, 
and repudiating as we do the very forms and authority of 
their proofs and demonstrations." (Works, vol. ii., p. 556.) 

From the foregoing it will appear why Bacon elaborated 
no separate treatise upon metaphysics. Instead of the- 
orizing about what is in man, he, in his Shakespeare 
mask, held forth a true anatomy of, and enacted even in 
their very eyes, their most subtle passions and emotions, 
and this done with the particular aim of showing vigorously 
the outcome and end of bad motives ; and thus to lead 
men, as by sight, to realize and hence to shun them. 

And thus did he in " a despised weed " procure the good 
of all men ; yea, and will for the ages yet to be. And 
this field of work, the real drama, and the reformation of 
the English stage, was doubtless intended to be included 
in our Head-light — " For I have taken all knovvledge to be 
my providence." 

In this way he read not merely to his age, but to the 
ages ; and not merely lessons in history or in the lives of 
English kings, but, as in Hamlet, the lesson of misgoverned 
sex ; in the Merchant, the lesson of greed ; in Lear, the 
lesson of ingratitude ; in Macbeth, the lesson of o'erwean- 
ing ambition ; in Romeo and Juliet, the outcome and end 
of violent party feuds ; in Othello, the lesson of jealousy 

^ This unusual use of the word " troops" is distinctly Baconian, 
and wetind him using the expressions " troops of effects," " troops of 
fiction," " troops of fairies," etc. And in his Philosophical Works, 
vol. iv., p. 29, we have : " For I well know that axioms once rightly 
discovered wih carry whole troops of works along with them, not here 
and there one, but in clusters." In Addison, vol. vi., p. 608, we have 
the expression "troop of forms," and on p. 612 "troop of commen- 
tators." And in Macbeth, Act v., sc. 3, p. 333, we have : 

" And that wiiich should accompany old age. 
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have. ' ' 



114 INTRODUCTION. 

awakened and fed by extrinsic evil influences^ to the over- 
throw of noble natures, and thus to the end. And the 
full end being the good of men, we do find him in high 
terms commending, in some of the sonnets, his own mask, 
and this though things had greatly changed since his 
assuming it, and though fulsome praise was thereby to 
fall, not merely upon it, but upon the person of William 
Shakespeare as well ; and who had now, as we judge, the 
Lord Bacon somewhat in his power. See at least Sonnets 
133 and 134 and the poem entitled The Phoenix and the 
Turtle, with which the Shakespeare writings are brought 
to conclusion. 

Bacon would not now, by claiming these writings, permit 
the stain put upon his name to fall upon his mask ; and so 
in one of the introductory poems to the plays we have : 

" To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, 
Am 1 thus ample to thy book and fame : 
While I confess thy writings to be such 
As neither man, nor muse, can praise too much : 
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways 
"Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise : 
For silliest ignorance on these may light. 
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right ; 
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance 
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ; 
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, 
And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise : 
These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore 
Should praise a matron : what w^ould hurt her more ? 
But thou art proof against them ; and, indeed, 
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need." 

And see Sonnets 36, 37, 38, and 39. 

Though this poem is accredited to Ben Jonson, we still 
regard all of the poems introductory to the plays as framed 
at least by Lord Bacon himself. The issue of the Phoenix 
First Folio was, we judge, under his entire supervision. 

And so in the Anatomy of Abuses we have painted forth 
man's abuses in externals, as in apparel, habits, customs, 
etc.; in the Anatomy of Melancholy we find anatomized 
his inward state by nature ; in the Defoe History of the 
Devil, the spirit of evil as the cause of that state ; in the 
plays we find presented the state and cause conjoined in 
operation upon the living stage ; while in the Philosophi- 
cal Writings we find the plaster or remedy. In the men- 
tioned works of Roxana, Moll Flanders, Captain Jack, and 



INTltODUCTION^. 115 

others may be found displayed the working of passions 
amid relations too slow for the real drama, and which may 
have served somewhat as scaffolding thereto. 

In Aph. 124, Book 1 of the Novum Organum Bacon says : 
" For we are founding a real model of the world in the 
understanding, such as it is found to be, not such as man's 
reason has distorted. Now this cannot be done without 
dissecting and anatomizing the world most diligently ; 
but we declare it necessary to destroy completely the vain 
little, and as it were apish imitations of the world, which 
have been formed in various systems of philosophy by 
men's fancies." 

But again, if Shakespeare be not the real author of the 
writings attributed to him, is it not more than likely that 
they contain specific indications in this direction ? In 
Sonnet 81 we may find the answer ; and wherein it is said 
that two persons are concerned in them, that one is to 
have all of the honor, and the other is to have but a com- 
mon grave ; and that it is the pen of the one who is to 
have but the common grave, that has made the monument 
for the other, and this whether or not he shall live to make 
his epitaph, He says : 

" Or I shall live your epitaph to make, 

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten ; 

From hence your memory death cannot take, 

Although in me each part will be forgotten. 

Your name from hence immortal life shall have. 

Although I, once gone, to all the world must die : 

The earth can yield me but a common grave, 

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. 

Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read-; 

And tongues to be your being shall rehearse. 

When all the breathers of this world are dead ; 

You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) 

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." 
Who did frame Shakespeare's question suggesting epi- 
taph ? Who did frame the question suggesting sign erected 
at Stratford ? From an admirable article in the Atlantic 
Monthly for July, 1861, "On Sun-Painting and Sun- 
Sculpttire," we quote : " The cracked and faded sign pro- 
jects as we remember it of old. In No. 1 you may read 
' The Immortal. HAKESpere . . . Born in This 
House ' about as well as if you had been to the trouble 
and expense of going there."' 



116 INTRODUCTION. 

Throngli Bacon's troubles, his right of sepulchre was 
shorn away, and so in Sonnet 68, and where the days of 
Elizabeth are brought into contrast, we think, with those 
of James the First, he says : 

" Tims in his cheek the map of days outworn, 
When beauty liv'd and died as tiowers do now, 
Before these bastard signs of fair were born, 
Or durst inhabit on a living brow ; 
Before the golden tresses of the dead, 
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,* 
To live a second life on second head, 
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay. 
In him those holy antique hours are seen, 
Without all ornament, itself, and true. 
Making no summer of another's green. 
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new ; 
And him as for a map doth Nature store. 
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.'"^ 

Whatever affected deeply the keen sensitive life of Lord 
Bacon may be found reflected in the sonnets. They are 
the curiously wrought keys by the study of which we may 
find reflected his inmost feelings. His pen here was often 
as subtle as in portions of his philosophy. It should be re- 
membered, however, that the sonnets, whoever may have 
been their author, were not written consecutively. They 
are fragmentary, having been produced at different periods 
during the life of their author, and hence they are the 
outcome of different occasions and emotions, as we shall 
see as we advance. Lord Bacon possessed an abiding faith 
that the ages to come would do him justice, and so they 
will, as the light of new developments shall make for or 
against him ; and whatever conclusions may be reached as 
to elements of strength or weakness in his private charac- 
ter, we must look further and deeper than did Macaulay 
if we would arrive at truth. 

In his fall, whatever may have been his personal losses, 
the world has been most richly blessed in the leisure which 
it brought, not merely to new literary work, but to that 
which otherwise would have been as good as lost. It like- 
wise furnished forth the coloring for his great concluding 
drama. The Tempest. 

* Promus, 1076 : (The loss of a tomb is easy [to bear].) 

2 This '* second life on second head" will fall later under review. 



EELATIOITAL FACTS. 



The period falling within the general scope of this work 
may be said to extend through many reigns of English 
history, beginning with the birth of Sir Francis Bacon, 
January 22d, 1561, and ending with the death of Defoe, 
April 26th, 1731, a period of one hundred and seventy 
years. 

Events immediately preceding and influencing this 
period, as well as a kind of relational survey of it, to the 
end of the reign of James the First, will be now made. 
Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of whose reign Lord 
Bacon was born, was a daughter of Henry the Eighth, 
under whom, in 1534, began the great Church reformation 
in England by his abjuring the Pope or ecclesiastical 
power of Rome, then supreme over all of the powers of the 
earth, and announcing himself as the head of all ecclesi- 
astical power in England ; in other words, as now head of 
the English Church. This step by Henry was due chiefly 
to the fact of his excommunication in consequence of his 
divorce, without the Pope's consent, of his first, and then 
wife, Catherine of Aragon, a daughter of Ferdinand and 
Isabella of Spain, and his marriage with Anne Boleyn, the 
mother of Elizabeth, rather than from any special desire 
upon his part for church Worm. He had, indeed, to this 
time been a zealous advocate of the Roman faith, and by 
the writing of a book against the then but opening doc- 
trines of the Reformation had received from the Church 
of Rome the title of " Defender of the Faith. " The men- 
tioned event thus furnished but the rending or breach, so 
to speak, for the development of the then advancing 
thought, first initiated in 1517 by Martin Luther, Pro- 
fessor of the University of Wittenberg, in Germany, by 
his sermons and writings against abuses of the Roman 
Church in its granting, under the then new Pope, Leo X. 



118 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

of what was known as the sale of indulgences, and which 
led to the opening of questions at first unaimed at. 

Upon the mentioned breach with Rome the monasteries 
and nunneries in England were all suppressed or swept 
away, and the monastic property, amounting to more than 
a million of dollars, was given to the Crown. In the fall 
of the monasteries, the schools of England, and which were 
connected with them, shared their fate. And in 1549, care- 
fully compiled from the old service books, appeared the 
first English Prajer-Book, concerning which great dissen- 
sions arose, as we shall see. It was adopted by an act 
which prohibited, under heavy penalties, all other forms 
of devotion, and was known as the Act of Uniformity. 

Henry the Eighth was fruit of a marriage between the 
White and Red Rose, otherwise known in English history 
for several generations as the contending houses of York 
and Lancaster, his father, Henry the Seventh, being an 
illegitimate branch of the House of Lancaster, and his 
mother, a daughter of Edward the Fourth, being of the 
House of York. By this union, coupled with the fact of 
the prior defeat of the House of York, in the person of 
Richard the Third, on Bosworth Field by Henry the Sev- 
enth, in 1485, these great factions in England had become 
somewhat harmonized before the mentioned outbreak with 
Rome. Through the craft and covetousness of Henry the 
Seventh, together with the now proceeds of the monastic 
property, England had a full treasury. Not only this, but 
Henry the Eighth was the first king of unquestioned title 
since the reign of Richard the Second. 

Prior to the death of Henry the Eighth, and which 
occurred in 1547, and but fourteen years prior to the birth 
of Lord Bacon, he by will, under, the sanction of, and by a 
statute of Parliament known as the Thirty- five of Henry 
the Eighth, provided that the succession should fall upon 
his three children by different wives in the following order : 
First upon his son Edward, by his third wife, Jane Sey- 
mour ; then upon Mary, by his first wife, Catherine of 
Aragon ; then Elizabeth, by his second wife, Anne Boleyn. 
And as Henry the Seventh was the first, so was Elizabeth 
the last of the Tudor kings, this line having been spent in 
one generation and three successions without issue. The 
male line thus failing upon Elizabeth's death, entitled 
James the Sixth of Scotland to the throne as James the 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 119 

First of England, he being directly descended of a mar- 
riage between Margaret, the eldest sister of Henry the 
Eighth, with the Scotch King James the Fourth. By 
this marriage the design of Henry the Seventh — the union 
of the two crowns of England and Scotland — was finally 
accomplished and without confusion. During his reign 
and in 1492 America was discovered, his reign having 
begun in 1485 and ended by his death, in 1509, and which 
event brought Henry the Eighth to the throne as stated. 
Under his son Edward, known in history as Edward the 
Sixth, the principles of the Eeformation became somewhat 
securely rested or fixed, the father, Henry the Eighth, 
having done little more than to withdraw his kingdom 
from Papal authority. He himself still retained substan- 
tially the views of the ancient Church — the Church of 
Eome. 

Upon the accession of Mary, however, unpleasantly 
known in history as Bloody Mary, terror was brought to 
the reforming party. She had become an avowed Catho- 
lic, and early in her reign became wedded to the Catholic 
prince, Philip the Second, the son, and on January 16th, 
1556, successor of that powerful monarch Charles the 
Fifth of Spain, and who was head of the Catholic party 
in Europe ; and thus was England returned to Catholic 
rule and to the terrible persecutions that followed. 

At his accession Philip became King of Spain, Naples, 
and Sicily, Duke of Milan, Lord of Franche Comte and 
the Netherlands, Kuler of Tunis and the Barbary court, 
the Canaries and Cape de Verd Islands, the Philippines 
and Spice Islands, large colonies in the TVest Indies, and 
vast territories in Mexico and Peru. 

As applied merely to England, it was during Mary's 
reign that the great battle between Eomanism and Prot- 
estantism was fought out, more than eight hundred vic- 
tims having beeen burned to the stake, the effect of which 
but the more rapidly ripened the Protestant cause. 

But Mary's reign was short, as had been Edward's, he 
having reigned but six and she five years. Upon Mary's 
death, in 1558, Elizabeth, at the age of twenty-five years, 
ascended the English throne, to the great comfort and satis- 
faction of the reforming party. During the reign of her 
sister her life had been much in jeopardy, but was pre- 
served by concealment of her real convictions, and by con- 



130 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

forming outwardly to the views and forms of the ancient 
Church. Upon her accession, however, she began the 
re-establishment of the Reformed or Protestant faith, at 
once setting free those who had been banished or impris- 
oned for their religions opinions, and her first Parliament, 
in 1559, again established the supremacy of the crown in 
ecclesiastical matters, and gave the Church of England its 
present form. The Book of Common Prayer, used in the 
reign of her brother, Edward the Sixth, with some alter- 
ations, was adopted and ordered to be read in all the 
churches. Ecclesiastical dignitaries, including the bishops, 
declined generally to take part in her coronation, and now 
refused to take the oath of supremacy. They were re- 
moved, and the Episcopal sees were filled with those ready 
to support the Reformed faith, and Parker became Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. While all were required to attend 
the Established Church, there was no longer search made, 
as formerly, into men's opinions, with the view of punish- 
ing particular forms of belief, though heavy fines were 
imposed either for non-attendance at church, or for cele- 
brating mass, and all Jesuits and persons trying to win 
over any to the Roman faith were treated as guilty of 
treason. While many conformed to the new laws, rules, 
and order of things, from mere worldly motives, many 
more, even among Protestants, could not conscientiously 
do so. Among these were those who were desirous — as 
was Lord Bacon, though he stood by the Established 
Church — of restoring what they thought to be the worship 
of the first century after Christ, and who became known 
as Puritans. These views had been brought from abroad 
by English exiles during the reign of Queen Mary. They 
sought to press their acceptance upon the English Church ; 
but all Protestants who, for whatever cause, did not con- 
form willingly to the new faith, the faith of the Church 
of England, were called Dissenters or Nonconformists. 
The Catholics, on the other hand, as a party, constituted 
a powerful opposition, and the whole of this and the next 
reign — the reign of James the First — was an almost unin- 
terrupted struggle with these factions — the Church party, 
the Nonconformists, and the Catholics. And the earliest 
papers put forth by Defoe were upon these questions, as 
we shall find when we come, to that branch of our subject. 
Thus, by these but touched -upon events, may be seen 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 121 

the breacli between mediaeval and modern times ; the break- 
ing np of the old and the violent birth of the new. And 
as there must ever be a physical rending, so to speak, 
before the influential can go forward, so in the doings of 
Henry the Eighth may be seen that mere rending which 
aided the Reformation, as well Italian and German, as in 
England, to move to its birth, but in which Henry's ends 
were but his own personal desires and will. 

To the time of Henry the Eighth the Pope had assumed 
to himself all power, both spiritual and temporal, over all 
of the kingdoms of the w^orld, and he proclaimed and his 
adherents avowed the doctrine of his infallibility ; and the 
world was thus awed into obedience. 

Following close upon such times, under such influences, 
and three years prior to the birth of Galileo and thirty- 
five prior to that of Descartes, was Lord Bacon born, at 
London, January 22d, 1561, at York House in the Strand, 
not then a street. 

Upon Elizabeth's death, in 1603, after forty-five years of 
the most brilliant of the reigns of English history, James 
the Sixth of Scotland came to the throne as James the 
First of England, as already stated, and his reign contin- 
ued twenty-two years and until his death, March 27, 1625. 
Lord Bacon is said to have died the year following. 

The reign of James the First, and who was the first of 
the House of Stnarts, was followed by that of his son, 
Charles the First, twenty- four years, and whose head was 
brought to the block January 30, 1649. He left two sons, 
who ultimately as Charles the Second and James the 
Second came to the throne. But now followed the Long 
Parliament, four years ; Cromwell, five years ; his son Rich- 
ard, two years, and until the restoration of the monarchy 
under the mentioned Charles the Second on April 25th, 
1660, and whose reign continued twenty-five years, during 
the second year of which, and in 1661, both Harley and 
Defoe were born. During this reign The Pilgrim's Progress 
first appeared. Then came the Catholic prince, James the 
Second, four years, and until the Revolution of 1688 ; 
then William and Mary, twelve years ; then Anne, the last 
of the House of Stuarts, twelve years, and under whom 
was finally effected the union of laws between England 
and Scotland, they having, until this time, been but united 
in their crowns, as we shall see ; then came George the 



122 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

First, the first of the House of Hanover, thirteen years ; 
then George the Second, thirty- three years, and whose reign 
ended in 1760. Defoe died in 1731, in the fourth year of 
this reign, at which time our period ends. 

These briefly stated facts will as way-marks aid our in- 
vestigation, and may give the reader a kind of general 
survey of the period falling within it. That portion of 
the period following the )-eign of James the First, as well 
as the later portion of that reign, embraces a very intriguing 
and desultory portion of English history. 

Events following this reign will, however, be considered 
only in connection with the tife of Defoe. 

It should be here carefully noted by the reader, that prior 
to the Reformation, the spiritual and educational interests, 
not only of England, but of the world, were under the 
dictation of Eome, and that literary acquirements were 
con lined almost wholly to the clergy. During the reign 
of Henry the Eighth, as well as of his son, Edward the 
Sixth, one who could not read Greek and Latin could 
read nothing or next to nothing. The entire books writ- 
ten in the vernacular during this period could, it is said, 
be placed on a single shelf of a gentleman's library, so 
few were they in number. The Latin was the language 
of the court, of diplomacy, and of the schools, as well as 
of theological speculations and controversies. This was 
but eleven }'ears prior to the birth of William Shakespeare, 
Edward having died July 6th, 1553, and Shakespeare born 
April 23d, 1564. 

But the Keformation initiated politically and in every 
way a new order of things. The nobles ceased now to be 
military chieftains with kept retinues to assist them in 
their feuds or wars. Priests ceased to possess a monopoly 
of learning, and in their stead there arose cautious, dis- 
creet, and learned politicians, made discreet and cautious 
by the general ferment and terrible persecutiens which 
followed that event. The growing tendencies to W 
crecy and ciphers need not, therefore, be wondered at 
during and immediately following this transition period. 
These men have been truly called the first race of English 
statesmen, prominent among whom were Sir William 
Cecil — in other words, Lord Burghley, the mentioned 
uncle, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, the father of him concern- 
ing whose life and doings we purpose investigation. The 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 123 

father. Sir Nicholas Bacon, as lord keeper, held the great 
seal of England during the first twenty years of Queen 
Elizabeth's reign and until his death, in 1579. As a states- 
man he is said to have been remarkable for clear thought 
and wise counsel. He was knighted early in Elizabeth's 
reign, and at the same time was made one of her privy coun- 
cil, and had, it is said, a considerable share in the settlement 
of ecclesiastical questions. He was born at Chislehurst, 
in Kent, in lolO, and so prior to the mentioned investiga- 
tions by Luther. He was educated at Cambridge, one of 
England's two great national seats of learning, and where 
he afterward educated his sons, xlnthony and Francis, and 
in which, as opposed to Oxford, were educated those states- 
men to whom is chiefly due the secure establishment of 
the Reformed faith. 

After leaving the university, he, as did later his son 
Francis, travelled for a time in France, where he made 
some considerable stay at Paris. Upon his return he 
settled at Gray's Inn, and applying himself to the law, 
soon gained distinction, and at the age of thirty- seven, in 
the last year of the reign of Henry the Eighth, he was 
appointed to the office of the court of wards, in which office 
he was continued by Edward the Sixth. 

In 1553 he was elected treasurer of Gray's Inn. 
Earlier and upon the dissolution of the monastery of St. 
Edmundsbury, in Suffolk, in 1545, he received a grant 
of several manors from the king. During the dangerous 
reign of Queen Mary he exercised much prudence and mod- 
eration, and became, as stated, Elizabeth's first lord, 
keeper, having succeeded Sir Nicholas Heath, Archbishop 
of York. 

During his term of office he, on one occasion, provoked 
the royal displeasure, was deprived of his seat at the council 
table, and it was even thought to deprive him of the seal. 
It arose from the thought that he had assisted Hales, the 
clerk of the hanaper, in his book on the succession, pub- 
lished in 1564, in which Hales sought, following the reign 
of Elizabeth, to sustain the claims to the crown of Lady 
Catherine Grey, second sister of Lady Jane Grey, who was 
a claimant at the death of Edward the Sixth, though he 
opposed those of Mary Queen of Scots, whom the Catholic 
party regarded as lawfully entitled to the crown instead of 
Elizabetli ; Elizabeth under their claims being illegitimate 



124 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

by reason of the nullity of her father ^s divorce from Cath- 
erine of Aragon without the Pope's consent, as already 
mentioned, and for whose destruction they are said in 
various ways to have plotted during her reign. The men- 
tioned Scotch Queen Mary was a daughter of James the 
Fifth of Scotland, who was fruit of the already alluded-to 
marriage between the eldest sister of Henry the Eighth 
and James the Fourth of Scotland, and from which mar- 
riage have sprung all the sovereigns of Great Britain fol- 
lowing the reign of Elizabeth to the accession of George 
the First, in 1714, since which the House of Hanover has 
ruled to the present time. By her maternal uncles, re- 
siding in France, as well as by the King of France, where 
she had been educated in the Catholic faith, she had early 
in the reign of Elizabeth been induced to assume the arms 
and title of Queen of England, as well as of Scotland, and 
in opposition to the succession fixed by consent of Parlia- 
ment upon the heirs of Henry the Eighth, as mentioned, 
and reaffirmed by Parliament as to Elizabeth at her ac- 
cession ; and thus may be seen the relation of the Queen of 
Scots to the times. 

Upon the opening of Parliament in 1571 Sir Nicholas 
Bacon, as lord keeper, made a somewhat eloquent speech, 
wherein he commented upon the past blessing of the 
queen, the setting at liberty of God's Word, the de- 
liverance from Roman tyranny, the inestimable benefits of 
peace, and the clemency of the government. That this 
peace had been disturbed he imputed to Roman interfer- 
ence, and this is made the prelude to the first statute of 
the session, and which made it treason to set forth that 
the queen ought not to possess the crown, but some other 
person, or to affirm that she is a heretic, schismatic, 
t^^rant, infidel, or usuper. Another clause of the act was 
even more particularly directed against the Queen of Scots, 
enacting that all persons of any degree, nature, or estate 
who during the queen's life should claim title to the 
crown should be disabled from inheriting the same, and 
that any claiming the right of succession contrary to any 
proclamation in the matter that might be issued by the 
queen should be declared guilty of high treason. 

The strange, if not criminal conduct of the Queen of 
Scots, concerning the death of her husband, and otherwise, 
had so exasperated the opposition of her Protestant nobles 



RELATIOJS'AL FACTS. * 125 

that she in 1567 v/as compelled to resign her crown of 
Scotland in favor of her infant son, James, who, as stated, 
thus became James the Sixth of Scotland, and following 
the death of Elizabeth, James the First of England. She 
had been twice married, first to the Dolphin of France 
and later to her profligate cousin, Lord Darnley, the father 
of James. Following her resignation and some ten 
months' imprisonment she made her escape, and having 
gathered a force of some six thousand men, she was de- 
feated, and fled into England for protection, and where for 
many years she was held in custody by reason (1) of alleged 
crimes : (2) because any extended protection would, it was 
thought, be regarded by Scotland as an espousal of her 
cause ; and (3) doubtless by reason of fear from her alleged 
claims to the crown of England. 

The wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon by a second marriage 
and mother of Francis was one of the accomplished 
daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, a man of distinguished 
learning, who had been tutor of Edward the Sixth, and 
who was deep in the mysteries of the reforming party. 
Mildred, her sister, was wife to Lord Burghley, also by a 
second marriage, and thus was Burghley uncle to Sir 
Francis Bacon. 

Anne, his mother, a stanch Puritan, was distinguished 
both as a linguist and as a theologian. She was not only 
an accomplished Greek and Latin scholar, but employed 
much time in the translation of different works. Bishop 
Jewel's great work, which stated the then theology of the 
Church of England, as against the Koman faith, and en- 
titled The Apology, was translated by her, and it is said 
with great exactness. Being interested in the works of 
Bernardino Ochino, an Italian reformer, she translated 
from the Tuscan a series of his sermons on fate and free 
will. Ochino was anathematized alike by Wittenberg, 
Geneva, Zurich, and Rome, from which the Socinian sect 
derived its origin. Note the mention of the word Witten- 
berg in the play of Hamlet. This work upon the writings 
of Ochino is somewhat suggestive, in many ways, in the 
light of work afterward performed by her illustrious son. 

Ochino was born at Siena in 1447, and died in 1564. 
For a more particular description than we may here give, 
see Britminica. Somewhat late in life he, from persecu- 
tion, found an asylum in England, where he not only re- 



126 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

ceived a pension from the privy purse of Edward the Sixth, 
but was made a prebendary of Canterbury, and here com- 
posed his capital work entitled The Tragedy. 

The English stage at this period may be said to have 
been but in its infancy. The plays attributed to Shake- 
speare, whoever may have been their author, had not as 
yet been conceived, nor had the real drama yet matured. 
The moral plays had but taken the place of the miracle 
plays in the reign of Edward the Sixth. They were per- 
formed by persons representing qualities such as virtue, 
vice, etc. 

The mentioned production by Ochino was written in 
Latin, and is said to be extant only in the translation of 
Bishop Ponet. It took form as a series of dialogues, and 
is said to be highly dramatic, and to bear so remarkable a 
resemblance to Milton's Paradise Lost that it is thought 
Milton, who is said to have sympathized with the Italian 
reformers, must have had acquaintance with it. 

In plot it is as follows : Lucifer, enraged at the spread 
of Christ's kingdom, convokes the fiends in counsel, and 
resolves to set up the Pope as Antichrist. The state, rep- 
resented by Phocas,^ the Emperor of the East from 602 to 

1 In the introductory matter to the A. D. B. Mask we have : " The 
opinion, therefore, of Liican we utterly dislike and repudiate as most 
absurd : 

" Depart from Court, if thou wilt pious be 
Goodness and Greatness will not, there, agree. 
"It is a flash, a gew-gaw, a mere frivolous trifle, unless we have 
respect only to those Monsters of men Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, 
Nero, Julian the Apostate, Phocas, and such like firebrands of fury, 
and patrons of impiety ; Never casting our eyes upon, nor rightly 
recogitatiug the most noble and renowned actions of those truly 
pious and prudent Courtiers, the most profitable and comfortable 
organs and instruments both of Church and Commonwealth ; in the 
number of whom I may first rank the most pious Patriarch Joseph, 
who at Court became the Prince and prime of all his Brethren, the 
Establisher of his people — yea, the very Basis, and (under God) the 
Atlas of his Nation ; to iDliom I add Moses, Abdias, David, Daniel, 
and Mordocai, who, with great prudence and providence, having 
waded througli and vanquished the various storms and jeopardous 
casualties of the turbulent sea (as I may so say) of the court ; have 
even therein most gloriously achieved the eminent and ever perma- 
nent renown and excellency of virtue, wit, dignity, and perfect 
piety — yea, and have shown themselves the main props and pillars 
of the Church of God, and their Weal-public." In this quotation 
note the Baconian use of the words " providence" and " Atlas," and 
found in our mentioned Head-light. 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 127 

610, is persuaded to connive at the Pope's assumption of 
spiritual authority. The other churches are intimidated 
into acquiescence, and Lucifer's projects seem fully ac- 
complished when Heaven raised up Henry the Eighth and 
his son for their overthrow. 

Upon the accession of Mary, Ochino was driven from 
England. His work entitled The Labyrintli is said to be 
among the most important of his works, and is a dis- 
cussion upon the freedom of the will, and in which Cal- 
vin's doctrine of predestination is covertly assailed. In 
The Pilgrim's Progress, in the Serious Reflections of Rob- 
inson Crusoe, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, in Hamlet, 
and, in fact, in all of the works under review where occa- 
sion presents, the tangled doctrine of predestination is 
most carefully and adroitly touched upon. In Hamlet, 
Act iii., sc. 2, p. 291, we have : 

** But, orderly to end where I begun, — ^ 
Our wills and fates do so contrary run. 
That our devices still are overthrown ; 
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our ow^n :" 

Bacon entitled the fourth part of his Great Instauration 
the " Scaling Ladder of the Intellect ; or, Thread of the 
Labyrinth." 

In 1563 Ochino's Thirty Dialogues were published, 
whereupon a storm of obloquy burst upon him, from which 
he was never able to recover. It was claimed that in one 
of these he justified polygamy under the color of a pre- 
, tended refutation. His dialogue on Divorce was also 
held obnoxious, as were those upon the Trinity. No ex- 

' This distinctive expression "to end where I begun" was Ba- 
conian, and in the De Augmentis, ch. 2, book 8, he says : " For he 
must have a lucky and a happy genius to guide him who shall at- 
tempt to make the axioms of sciences convertible, and shall not withal 
make them circular, or returning into themselves," 

' And in the same play, Act v., sc. 2, p. 869, we have : 

" Hor, If your mind dislike any thing, obey it : I will forestal 
their repair hither, and say you are not lit. 

•' Ham. Kot a whit, we defy augury : there is a special providence 
in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not 
to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the 
readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is't 
to leave betimes ? Let be." 

In early years Bacon was unquestionably a close reader of Calvin, 
who manifested a considerable interest, at one time, in Ochino. 



128 RELATIOI^AL FACTS. 

planations were permitted, and he, then at Zurich, was 
obliged to take refuge in flight, and he seems no longer to 
have been sustained anywhere. 

These works are thought to have had an influence upon 
Milton. We think them to have had an early influence 
upon Bacon, and figured forth in his Bunyan's Holy War, 
his Defoe's History of the Devil, Conjugal Lewdness, 
Roxana, Moll Flanders, etc., as well as in his Shakespeare 
and in his generally attributed writings, as none of the 
distinctive views of Ochino's times escaped him, and more 
especially as his strictly Puritan mother was early inter- 
ested in their translation. 

Lust as a motive is made prominent in every branch of 
this literature, and by that individuality of haadling, 
which shows its products to be from but one mind, and 
that mind Bacon's. It is in its effects everywhere brought 
to but the one issue, and nowhere more tersely or more 
beautifully expressed, perhaps, than in the Venus and Ado- 
nis, the claimed first product from Shakespeare's pen, but 
dedicated to Southampton, Bacon's early associate at 
Gray's Inn, and from which we quote as follows : 

" Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, 
But lust's effect is tempest after sun; 
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, 
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done ; 
Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies ; 
Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies," ' 

See these effects vividly pictured in the Anatomy of 
Melancholy, vol. ii., pp. 345-351, and in earlier pages 
is shown the dalliance, delight, and dotage of love, or 
rather of lust: as it is said of love " 'tis nature's crown, 
and gold, and glory." And in Sonnet 116 we have : 

" Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments : love is not love. 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 

^ Bacon's essay entitled " Of Love" opens in these words : " The 
stage is more beholden to love than the life of man ; for as to the 
stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies ; 
but in life it doth much mischief ; sometimes like a siren, sometimes 
like a fury." And it ends thus : " Nuptial love maketh mankind ; 
friendly love perfecteth it ; but wanton love corrupteth and em- 
baseth it." Note here Bacon's word "siren" and the use of that 
word in Sonnet 119, p. 28, 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 129 

O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ; 

It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Whose wortli's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error, and upon me prov'd, 

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. 

After love has been o'erthrown, corrupted, or fallen, it 
is in the mentioned poem said : 

" It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud ; 
Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while ; 
The bottom poisoned, and the top o'erstraw'd* 
With sweets, that shall the truest sight beguile : 
The strongest body shall it make most weak, 
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak." 

And in Sonnet 129 we have : 

*' Th' expense of spirit"'^ in a waste of shame 
Is lust in action ; and, till action, lust 
Is perjur'd. murderous, bloody, full of blame, 
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ; 
Enjoy 'd no sooner but despised straight ; 
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had. 
Past reason hated, as a swallow 'd bait, 
On purpose laid to make the taker mad : 
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ; 
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; 
A bliss in proof, and, prov'd, a very woe ; 
Before, a joy propos'd ; behind, a dream : 
All this the world well knows ; yet none knows well 
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."^ 

' Note throughout these various works, and particularly in the 
Shakespeare writings, the use of this word "straw" and the fol- 
lowing Baconian notes concerning the word : 

Promus, 108. Best we lay a straw here. Pro., 596. An ass's trot 
and a tire of straw. Pro., 677. To stumble over a straw and leap 
over a block. Pro., 721. To judge the corn by the straw. In The 
Tempest, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 80, we have : " The strongest oaths are 
straw to fire in the blood." See The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 284, 
as to straws and the muck-rake. In Bacon's Philosophical Works, 
vol. ii., p. 447, he says that " hay and straw have a very low degree 
of heat, but yet close and smothering, and which drieth not." 

2 I think the reader will agree with us in saying that the expres- 
sion " expense of spirit," as here used, is distinctive and unusual. 
We will in some further relations soon to be introduced show whence 
it had its origin. 

• Read, please, in this connection Bacon's interpretation of the fable 

5 



130 KELATIONAL FACTS. 

Hudson's introduction to the Venus and Adonis, p. 6, 
closes in these words : 

" Shakespeare has here represented the animal impulse 
itself, so as to preclude all sympathy with it, by dissipating 
the reader's notice among the thousand outward images, 
and now beautiful, now fanciful circumstances, which 
forms its dress and scenery ; or by diverting our attention 
from the main subject by those frequent witty or profound 
reflection, which the poet's ever-active mind has deduced 
from, or connected with the imagery and the incidents. 
The reader is forced into too much action to sympathize 
with the merely passive of our nature. As little can 
a mind thus roused and awakened be brooded on by 
mean and indistinct emotion, as the low, lazy mist can 
creep upon the surface of a lake while a strong gale is driv- 
ing it onward in waves and billows." And see Hudson's 
quotation from Coleridge, with which he closes his intro- 
duction to the Eape of Lucrece, by Tarquin. Tarquin 
was the seventh king from Bomulus, the founder of the 
Eoman State, and whose son ravished Lucretia. The 
father espoused the son, and was deposed, the monarchy 
dissolved, and the Roman Government turned into at first 
the best regulated commonwealth the world has seen. 
See these facts, please, in the notes to Book 8 of Defoe's 
Jure Divino. 

In the poems, as in the plays and elsewhere m this 
literature, the mind, the attention, is first focalized by 
entertainment and until caught and stayed by reflection. 
The philosophy of Bacon has indeed been truly called the 
poetry of philosophy, and in sex it finds an all-powerful 
evolving centre — the centre of final causes, the *' virgin 
consecrated to God,'' or, as Spencer has it, the field of the 

entitled " Dionysus ; or, Desire." In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 349, 
we have : " Who could l)ave thought that any one could so far be 
blinded by the power of lust?" On p. 324 : "And to the boys 
he said, Do you tly youthful lusts, and follow after godliness with 
them that are grave and wise." As to the expression " fly lusts," we 
from Hamlet, Act iv., sc, 7, p. 336, quote : " Let the king have the 
letters I have sent ; and repair thou to me with as much haste as 
thou would 'st fly death." We find Bacon making use of such ex- 
pressions as " flight of the spirits," " fly to their ends," "fly in the 
face." etc. In Addison, vol. vi., p. 604, we have : "Instances of 
this abound even in those copies of their verses that aie writ the 
most in the spirit of lewdness (as supeistition hath ever been an 
especial bawd to lust)". 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 131 

*' Unknowable." In connection with these thoughts see, 
please, Bacon's interpretation of the fable entitled " Cupid 
or an Atom" and his article entitled *' Of the Principles 
and Origins of Nature According to the Fable of Cupid 
and Heaven." (Works, vol. i., pp. 298, 435.) In his 
article entitled " Thoughts on the Nature of Things," 
same volume, p. 408, he says : " And I know not but the 
investigations we are now handling, of the primary char- 
acter of seminal and atomic particles, is of a unity greatly 
superior to all others whatsoever, as forming the sover- 
eign^ rule of action and of power and the true criterion of 
hope and operation."' Beneath the fables m Bacon's 
** Wisdom of the Ancients" are spread subtle principles 
of his philosophy, and concerning which Mr. Spedding 
says : *' In July, 1608, remembering that a prophet is 
not without honour except in his own country, he was 
considering the expediency of beginning to print in 
France. And about the same time the idea of shadowing 
himself under the darkness of antiquity seems to have ac- 
corded to him ; for I am much inclined to think that it 
was some such consideration which induced him, in 1609, 
to bring out his little book/>6 Bapientia Veterum ; where, 
fancying that some of the cardinal principles of his own 
philosophy lay hid in the oldest Greek fables, he took ad- 
vantage of the circumstance to bring them forward under 
the sanction of that ancient prescription, and so made 
those fables serve partly as pioneers to prepare his way 
and partly as auxiliaries to enforce his authority." (Phil. 
AYorks, vol. iii., p. 174.) 

In his interpretation of the fable " Pan ; or, Nature," 
De Augmentis, Book 2, ch. 13, p. 100, he says : 

" This fable is, perhaps, the noblest of all antiquity, 
and pregnant with the mysteries and secrets of nature. 

^ Note Bacon's use of the word "sovereign," as "sovereign 
rule," "sovereign honour," "sovereign remedy;" and in the 
Venus and Adonis we have " sovereign salve. " Bacon says : " For, 
in my judgment, it would be an opinion more flattering than true, 
to think any medicine can be so sovereign or so happy as that 
the simple use of it can worli any great cure." 

2 In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 122, we have : " And first they 
had him into tlie study, wliere they showed him records of the great- 
est antiquity ; in which, as I remember my dream, they showed 
him the pedigree of the Lord of the hill, he v\as tlie Son of the 
Ancient of days, and came by eternal generation." 



132 kelatioinTAL facts. 

Pan, as the name imports, represents the universe, about 
whose origin there are two opinions — viz., that if. either 
sprung from Mercury^ — that is, the Divine word, according 
to the Scriptures and philosophical divines ; or from the 
confused seeds of things ; for some of the philosophers 
held that the seeds and elements of nature were infinite in 
their substance ; whence arose the opinion of homogene- 
ous primary parts, which Anaxagoras either invented or 
propagated. Others, more accurately, maintain that the 
variety of nature can equally spring from seeds, certain 
and definite in substance, but only diversified in form and 
figure, and attribute the remaining varieties to the interior 
organization of the seeds themselves. From this source 
the doctrine of atoms is derived, which Democritus main- 
tained and Leucippns found out. But others teach only 
one principle of nature — Thales, water ; Anaximenes, air ; 
Heraclitus, fire ; — and defined this principle, which is one 
in act, to be various and dispensable in powers, and involv- 
ing the seeds of all natural essences. They who intro- 
duced, as Aristotle and Plato, jorimordial matter every 
way disarranged, shapeless, and indifferent to any form, 
approached nearer to a resemblance of the figure of the 
parable ; for they conceived matter as a courtezan and 
the forms as suitors ; so that the whole dispute comes to 
these two points — viz., either that nature proceeds from 
Mercury or from Penelope^ and all her suitors." ' 

^ Promus. 545. A Mercury cannot be made of every wood (but 
Priapns may.) (Ke e quoris ligno Mercurius fiat. — [Er. Ad. 499] — 
i.e., A dullard will never make a sage.) As to the use of this word 
" Priapus," we, from the play of Pericles, Act iv., sc. 6, p. 359, 
quote thus : 

" Baicd. Fie, fie upon her ! she is able to freeze the god Pria- 
pus, and undo a Avhole generation : we must either get herravish'd, 
or be rid of her," 

^ Promus, 781. Penelope's vreb (Penelopes telam retexere. — 
Eras. Ad. 156.) In Coriolauus, Act i., sc. 3, p. 170, we have : 

" Val. You would be another Penelope : yet they say all the yarn 
she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths." 

In Addison, vol. v., p. 172, we have : 

" Vel. But her character is unblemished. She has been as virtu- 
ous in your absence as a Penelope — 

" Sir Oeo. And has had as many suitors." 

^ Bacon's interpretation of this fable. Pan, should be read in full. 
Pan is by Webster defined thus : " The god of shepherds, guardian 
of bees, and patron of fishing and fowling. He is usually repre- 
sented as combining the form of a man with that of a beast, having 
the body of a man, a red face with a fiat nose, horns upon his head. 



kelatio:n-al facts. 133 

Something about the foregoing recalls these lines from 
Richard 11. , Act v., sc. 5, p. 134 : 

" I have been studying how I may compare 
This prison, where I live, unto the world : 
And, for because the world is populous, 
And here is not a creature but myself, 
I cannot do it, — Yet I'll hammer't out. 
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul ; 
My soul, the father ; and these two beget 
A generation of still breeding thoughts. 
And these same thoughts people this little world ; 
In humours like the people of this world, 
For no thought is contented." 

But it must be remembered that it is not intended that 
all finely expressed thought in the plays should represent 
Bacon's grounded conclusions. In order truly to 
represent the platform — that is, the present stage of 
being, he makes his characters say what he will, and what 
men, himself included, do everywhere say ; and thus to his 
purposes does he shape and show subtle ends or the events 
from which they may flow. 

In his mentioned '^ Cupid, or an Atom," p. 298, Bacon 
represents both the coming of the egg, and the motion by 
which it comes, as veiled by Nox, or in night, and says : 
" This fable tends and looks to the cradle of nature, love 
seeming to be the appetite or desire of the first matter, or, 
to speak more plain, the natural motion of the atom, 
Avhich is that ancient and only power that forms and 
fashions all things out of matter, of which there is no 
parent — that is to say, no cause, seeing every cause is a 
parent to its effect. Of this power or virtue there can be 
no cause in nature, as for God we always except him,^ for 
nothing was before it, and therefore no efficient cause of 
it." ' 

and the legs, thighs, tail, and feet of a goat." Note in the plays 
the use of the words horns, thighs, legs, etc., in connection with 
the same words in Bacon's Promus notes. In Lear, Act ii., sc. 4, p. 
475, we have : " Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by the 
neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs : when a man is 
over-lusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks, ' ' 

^ Let tliese thoughts be read in connection with our quotations 
from the Defoe work entitled "The Storm." 

^ Note in tlie Venus and Adonis and in the plays the couching of 
desire under Nox or in night. In the mentioned article concern- 
ing "Cupid; or. Heaven" (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 463 and 
465), Bacon says : "It has been said, then, that the primitive 



134 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

To this thought we may add that the evolution or com- 
ing, not only of all external forms in nature, but of all 
subjective ideation to consciousness, is ever from out the 
unseen. Even our words — the body in which ideation 
takes objective condition — are, when wholly impromptu, 
born instantly in the mind upon the utterance, we being 
unable for the slightest moment in advance of the words 
used while speaking, to think or know what word we will 
next make use of until its birth in the mind at the moment 
of utterance. So also the ditficult point to be overcome 
or reached in all great inventions, when it comes, comes 
ever suddenly, and but as a flash of light, the will having 
in it no part, save the holding of the mental energies in 
the direction from which spontaneity is sought. Nor can 
we tell why present thought was not born to us at some 
earlier or later moment. 

Bacon in the last-mentioned article, p. 299, further 
says : '' The Greek philosophers are observed to be very 
acute and diligent in searching out the material principles 
of things ; bat in the beginnings of motion, wherein con- 
sists all the efficacy of operation, they are negligent and 
weak, and in this that we handle, they seem to be alto- 
gether blind and stammering ; for the opinion of the Peri- 
patetics concerning the appetite of matter caused by priva- 
tion is in a manner nothing else but words, which rather 
sound than signify any reality." 

Bacon everywhere emphasizes the subject of motion, and 
watched diligently its beginnings. In vol. iv., p. 257, of 
his Philosophical Works, he says : "Among the parts of 

essence, force and desire of things has no cause. How it proceeded, 
having no cause, is now to be considered. Now, the manner is itself 
also very obscure, and of this we are warned by the parable, where 
Cupid is elegantly feigned to come of an egg which was laid by 
Nox. . . . Now, that point concerning the egg of Nox bears a most 
apt reference to the demonstrations by which this Cupid is brought 
to light. For things concluded by athrmatives may be considered 
as the offspring of light ; whereas those concluded by negatives 
and exclusions are extorted and educed, as it were, out of darkness 
and night. Now this Cupid is truly an egg hatched by Nox : for 
all the knowledge of him which is to be had proceeds by exclusions 
and negatives ; and proof made by exclusion is a kind of ignorance 
and, as it were, night, with regard to the thing included. , . . Let 
us now proceed to Cupid himself— that is, primitive matter, together 
with its properties, which are surrounded by so dark a night, and 
see what light the parable throws upon this." 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 135 

history which I have mentioned, the history of Arts is of 
most use, because it exhibits things in motion, and leads 
more directly to practice. Moreover, it takes off the mask 
and veil from natural objects, which are commonly con- 
cealed and obscured under the variety of shapes and ex- 
ternal appearance. Finally, the vexations of art are 
certainly as the bonds and liandcuffs of Proteus, which 
betray the ultimate struggles and efforts of matter ; for 
bodies will not be destro3'ed or annihilated ; rather than 
that, they will turn themselves into various forms." And 
in the mentioned fable concerning " Pan or Nature," he 
says : " Hence one of the moderns has ingeniously reduced 
all the power of the soul to motion, noting the precipitancy 
of some of the ancients, who, fixing their thoughts pre- 
maturely on memory, imagination, and reason, have 
neglected the cogitative faculty, which, however, plays 
the chief role in the work of conception. For he that 
remembers, cogitates, as likewise he who fancies or rea- 
sons ; so that the soul of man in all her moods dances to 
the musical airs of the cogitations, which is that rebound- 
ing of the Nymj^hs. " ^ 

The investigation of motion lies, indeed, at the very 
basis of Bacon's subtle views concerning forms, and in 
Aph. 51, Book 1 of the Novum Organum he says : " The 
human understanding is, by its own nature, prone to ab- 
straction, and supposes that which is fluctuating to be 
fixed. But it is better to dissect than abstract nature ; 
such was the method employed by the school of Democritus, 

^ Concerning Bacon's " places of invention" and the " park and deer" 
of the Venus and Adonis, we quote the following : " The invention 
of arguments is not properly an invention ; for to invent is to dis- 
cover that we know not, not to recover or resummon that w^hich we 
already kuow^ Now the use and ofhce of this invention is no other 
than out of the mass of linowledge which is collected and laid up in 
the mind to draw forth readily that which may be pertinent to the 
matter or question which is under consideration. For to him who 
has little or no knowledge on the subject proposed, places of in- 
vention are of no service ; and, on the other hand, he who is ready 
provided with matter applicable to the point in question will, even 
without art and places of invention (although perhaps not so expe- 
ditiously and easily), discover and produce arguments. So (as I have 
said) this kind of invention is not properly an invention, but a re- 
membrance or suggestion with an application. Nevertheless, as the 
name has come into use, let it be called invention ; for the hunting 
of any wild animal may be called a finding of it, as w^ell in an en- 
closed park as in a forest at large." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 431.) 



136 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

which made greater progress in penetrating nature than 
the rest. It is best to consider matter, its conformation, 
and the changes of that conformation, its own action, and 
the law of this action or motion ; for forms are a mere 
fiction of the human mind, unless you will call the laws of 
action by that name." 

That the word forms, as here used, is not intended to 
apply to the physiognomy or configuration of bodies, but 
rather to the discovery of laws falling within and proceeding 
from them, may be seen in Aphs. 2, 13, and 1? of Book 
2 of the work mentioned : and see Aphs. 9, 15 and 18. To 
discover these forms was the object of his tables, and these, 
as stated, were the centre of his system, and which he applied 
as well to mind or metaphysics, as to physics. See Aph. 127, 
Book 1, and quoted in this work at p. 112. As to those 
ideational motions that concern mind itself in its tenden- 
cies to error, see the Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Den, 
Idols of the Market, and Idols of the Theatre, Aphs. 38- 
G3, Book 1, of said work. 

Bacon to himself at least reduced all things in nature 
to simplicity, and so in his Interpretation of Nature 
(AVorks, vol. i., p. 86) he says : " So if the moral philoso- 
phers, that have spent such an infinite quantity of debate 
touching good and the highest good, had cast their eye 
abroad upon nature, and beheld tlie appetite that is in all 
things to receive and to give — the one motion affecting 
preservation, and the other multiplication — which appe- 
tites are most evidently seen in living creatures, in the 
pleasure of nourishment and generation, and in man do 
make the aptest and most natural division of all his de- 
sires, being either of sense of pleasure, or sense of power ; 
and in the universal frame of the world are figured, the 
one in the beams of heaven which issue forth, and the 
other in the lap of the earth which takes in ;^ and again, 

^ Bacon evidently expended much thought upon the subject of sex, 
as connected with the source or origin of all molecnlar or material 
change. Note this subject in connection with his mythology or 
" Wisdom of the Ancients." In Aph. 27, Book 2 of the Novum 
Organum, he, among other things upon this subject, sa3rs : '-' Again, 
the resemblance and coaformity of man to an inverted plant is not 
absurd. For the head is the root of the nerves and animal facul- 
ties, and the seminal parts are the lowest, not including the extremi- 
ties of the legs and arms. But in the plant, the root (which resembles 
the head), is regularly placed in the lowest, and the seeds in the high- 
est part. ' ' 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 137 

if they had observed the motion of congrnity, or situation 
of the parts in respect of the whole, evident in so many 
particulars ; and lastly, if they had considered the motion, 
familiar in attraction of things, to approach to that which 
is higher in the same kind : when by these observations, 
so easy and concurring in natural philosophy, they should 
have found out this quaternion of good, in enjoying or 
fruition, effecting or operation, consenting or proportion, 
and approach or assumption, they would have saved and 
abridged much of their long and wandering discourses of 
pleasure, virtue, duty, and religion. So likewise in this 
same logic and rhetoric, or acts of argument and grace of 
speech, if the great masters of them would but have gone 
a form lower, and looked but into the observations of 
grammar concerning the kinds of words, their derivations, 
deflections, and syntax, specially enriching the same, 
with the helps of several languages, with their differing 
properties of words, phrases, and tropes, they might have 
found out more and better footsteps of common reason, 
help of disputation, and advantages of cavillation, than 
many of these which they have propounded. So, again, 
a man should be thought to dally if he did note how the 
figures of rhetoric and music are many of them the same. 
The repetitions and traductions in speech, and the reports 
and hauntings of sounds in music, are the very same things.' 
Plutarch hath almost made a book of the Lacedemonian 
kind of jesting, which joined every pleasure with distaste," 
Bacon's thoughts touching the subject of sex, and spread 
throughout these writings, as well as his application of the 
word " Venus" thereto, will in a measure appear in sub- 
divisions 693, 694, and 695 of his Natural History. To 
two of these we give place as follows : " 694. The pleasure 
in the act of Venus is the greatest of the pleasures of the 
senses f the matching^ of it with itch is improper ; though 

' Let the Addison articles concerning music, sounds, and language 
be read in this connection, please. 

■^ In the Anatomy of Abuses, p. 197, we have : " Ludovicus Vives 
saith. Amongst all pleasures, dancing and voluptuousness is the king- 
dom of Venus, and the empire of Cupid." And same work. p. 
163 : " Aristotle debarreth youth of access to plays and interludes, 
least their seeking to quencli the thirst of Venus do quench it with a 
pottle of fire." Again, Bacon recommended the writing of a " His- 
tory of Venus as a Species of Touch ;" also a " History of Concep- 
tion, Vivificatiou, Gestation in the Womb, Birth, eic." 

^ i^Tote throughout this use of the word "match" instead of 



138 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

that also be pleasing to the toucli. But the causes are pro- 
found. First, all the organs of the senses qualify the mo- 
tions of the spirits ; and make so many several species of 
motions, and pleasures or displeasures tliereupon, as there 
be diversities of organs. Tlie instruments of sight, hear- 
ing, taste, and smell are of several frame, and so are 
the parts for generation. Therefore Scaliger doth well 
to make the pleasure of generation a sixth sense ;^ 
and if there were any other differing organs, and qualihed 
perforations for the spirits to pass, there would be more 
than the five senses. Neither do we well know" whether 
some beasts and birds have not senses that we know not ; 
and the very scent of dogs is almost a sense of itself. Sec- 
ondly, the pleasures of the touch are greater and deeper 
than those of the other senses, as we see in warming upon 
cold, or refrigeration upon heat ; for as the pains of the 
touch are greater than the oifences of other senses, so like- 
wise are the pleasures. It is true that the affecting of the 
spirits immediately, and, as it were, without an organ, is 
of the greatest pleasure, which is but in two things : sweet 
smells, and wine and the like sweet vapours. For smells, 
we see their great and sudden effect in fetching^ men again 



" compare" or like words. In the Winter's Tale, Act v., sc. 3, p. 

137, we have : 

" O, sweet Paulina ! 
Make me to think so twenty years together : 
No settled senses of the world can match 
The pleasure of that madness. Left alone." 

^ Note, and for future reference, this belief in a sixth sense, 
founded upon sex. 

^ Note throughout the expression " well know." 

2 In Addison, vol. iv., p. 119, we have : " In a word, a man might 
reply to one of these comforters as Augustus did to his friend who 
advised him not to grieve for the death of a person whom he loved, 
because his grief would not fetch him again," See the distinctive 
use of this word "fetch" at p. 69, note 1. And note through- 
out its constant use. Bacon says : " For as money will fetch all 
other commodities, so this knowledge is that which should purchase 
all the rest." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 384.) In Addison, vol. v., p. 
161, we have : " Why, yonder's the fine Londoner and madam fetcli- 
ing a walk together, and methought they looked as if they should say 
they had rather have my room than my company." In The Pil- 
grim's Progress, p. 288, we have : "If a man would live well, let 
hhn fetch liis last da}^ to him, and make it always his company 
keeper." In Measure for Measure, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 70, we have : 



RELATIOi^AL FACTS. 139 

when they swoon ; for drink, it is certain that the pleasure 
of drunkenness^ is next the pleasure of Venus ; and great 
joys likewise make the spirits move and touch themselves ; 
and the pleasure of Venus is somewhat of the same kind.'' 
'* 693, It hath been observed by the ancients that much 
use of Venus doth dim the sight ; and yet eunuchs which 
are unable to generate are nevertheless also dim sighted. 
The cause of dimness of sight in the former is the expense 
of spirits ;^ in the latter, the over-moisture' of the brain ; 
for over-moisture of the brain doth thicken the spirits' 
visual, and obstructeth their passages, as we see by the decay 

" Think you I can a resohition fetch 
From flowery tenderness ?" 

In Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 342, we have : 

" Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift, 
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant :" etc. 

^ In Othello, Act ii., sc, 3, p. 470, we have : 

" O, thou invisible spirit of wine ! if thou hast no name to be 
known by, let us call thee — devil." In Addison, vol. iv., p. Ill, 
we have : " The sober man, by the strength of reason, may keep 
under and subdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined ; 
but wine makes every latent seed sprout up in the soul, and show 
itself ; it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which 
are apt to produce them," 

^ To this distinctive Baconian expression, "expense of spirit," 
we have called attention in connection with Sonnet 129. Bacon 
says : " It is in expense of blood as it is in expense of money." (Ba- 
con's Letters, vol. iv., p. 401.) In Sub. 352 of his Natural History 
lie says : " Fire and flame are in continual expense ; sugar shinetk 
only while it is in scraping ; and salt water while it is in dashing ; 
glow-worms have their shining while they live, or a little after," 
AVe have the glow-worm mentioned in the play of Hamlet, and one 
of the Addison articles is subscribed Martha Glow-worm. Sub, 684 
of Bacon's Natural History is as follows : "It hath been noted that 
most trees, and specially those that bear mast, are fruitful but once 
in two years. The cause, no doubt, is the expense of sap ; for many 
orchard trees, well cultured, will bear diverse years together." 
Note now the word " mast" as used in the foregoing by Bacon, 
and in the following from Shakespeare : 

" Why should you want ? Beliokl. the earth hath roots ; 

Within this mile break forth a hundred springs ; 

The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips ; 

The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush 

Lays her full mess before yoa," 

— Timon of Athens, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 104. 

3 Note in the Anatomy of Melancholy the handling of this sub- 
ject of the over-moisture of the brain. 



140 EELATIOI^AL FACTS. 

in the sight in age, where also the diminution of the spirits 
concurreth as another cause ; we see also that blindness 
Cometh from rheums and cataracts. Now in eunuchs there 
are all the notes of moisture ; as the swelling of the thighs, 
the looseness of their belly, and the smoothness of their 
skin," etc. 

From snb. 713 to 723 the passions of the mind will be 
found graphically set forth. Two of these we quote thus : 

" 713. The passions of the mind work upon the body 
the impressions following. Fear causeth paleness, trem- 
bling, the standing of the hair upright, starting and 
screeching. The paleness is caused, for that the blood run- 
neth inward to succour the heart. The trembling is 
caused, for that through the flight of the spirits inward, 
the outward parts are destituted, and not sustained. 
Standing upright of the hair' is caused, for that by 
shutting of the pores of the skin, the hair that lieth aslope 
must needs rise. Starting is both an apprehension of the 
thing feared (and in that kind it is a motion of shrinking), 
and likewise an inquisition in the beginning, what the 
matter should be'^ (and in that kind it is a motion of erec- 
tion), and therefore when a man would listen suddenly to 
anything, he starteth, for the starting is an erection of 
the spirits to attend. Screeching is an appetite of expel- 
ling that which suddenly striketh the spirits ; for it must 

^ In Hamlet we have the hair standing " like quills upon the fret- 
ful porcupine." 

^ Note the peculiar form of the expression, " what the matter 
should be." Bacon often makes the word "should" serve this 
kind of interrogative use. He will frequently be found to use the 
expression " what it should mean" in the identical sense found in 
the following from The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 333: "Many have 
spoken of it ; but none can tell what the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death should mean until they come in it themselves." Bacon him- 
self, following his fall, came into that valley, and so was able to 
describe it. Again in the Pilgrim's Progress, p. 278, we have: 
" Now, Christiana, imagining what they should mean, made answer, 
AVe will neither hear, nor regard, nor yield to what j^ou shall ask." 
And on p. 382, " Then they asked the shepherds what that should 
mean." And in Hamlet, Act iv., sc. 7, we have : 

" What should this mean 1 Are all the rest come back ?" 

In Henry VIII., Act iii., sc. 2, p. 294, we have : 

" Wol. What should this mean ? 

What sadden anger's this ? how have I reap'd it ? 



KELATIONAL FACTS. 141 

be noted, that many motions, thougli they be unprofitable 
to expel that which hurteth, yet they are offers of nature, 
and cause motions by consent, as in groaning, or crying 
upon pain." 

** 722. Lust causeth a flagrancy in the eyes, and pria- 
pism. The cause of both tliese is, for that in lust, the sight 
and the touch are the things desired, and therefore the 
spirits resort to those parts which are most affected. And 
note well in general (for that great use may be made of 
the observation), that, evermore, the spirits in all passions, 
resort most to the parts that labour most, or are most 
affected. As in the last which hath been mentioned, they 
resort to the eyes^ and venerous parts ; in fear and anger 
to the heart ; in shame to the face ; and in light dislikes 
to the head." 

Bacon indeed believed in lusts and appetites in or 
through mere matter and below consciousness, and so in a 
kind of perception below sense. To this subject he de- 
voted careful thought in connection with the subjects of 
the sensibility, perception, and the human soul. See 
ch. 3, Book 4, of the De Augmentis. 

And in ch. 3 of Book 7 he as to the passions further 
says : " So likewise I find some particular writings of an 
elegant nature, touching some of the affections, as of 
anger, of tenderness of countenance, and some few others. 
But to speak the real truth, the poets and writers of his- 
tory are the beat doctors of this knowledge, where we may 
find painted forth with great life and dissected, how affec- 
tions are kindled and excited, and how pacified and re- 
strained, and how again contained from act and further 
degree ; ho w^ they disclose themselves, though repressed and 
concealed ; how they work ; how they vary ; how they are 
enwrapped one within another ; how they fight and en- 

' Note the emphasis upon this thought as to the eyes in all of these 
writings, and to which we shall again have occasion to refer. In 
Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 430, we have : 

" From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : 
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ; 
They are the books, the arts, the Academes, 
That show, contain, and nourish all the world ; 
Else, none at all in aught proves excellent." 

Note the words " Promethean fire" in connection with Bacon's in- 
terpretation of the fable *' Prometheus ; or. The State of Man." 



142 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

counter one with another ; and many other particular- 
ities of this kind ; amongst which this last is of special 
use in moral and civil matters ; how, I say, to set affection 
against affection, and to use the aid of one to master an- 
other ; like hunters and fowlers who use to hunt beast 
with beast, and catch bird with bird, which otherwise 
perhaps without their aid man of himself could not so 
easily contrive ;' upon which foundation is erected that 
excellent and general use in civil government of reward 
and punishment, whereon commonwealths lean ; seeing 
those predominant affections of fear and hope suppress 
and bridle all the rest. For as in the government of states 
it is sometimes necessary to bridle^ one faction with an- 
other, so it is in the internal government of the mind." 

In connection with the foregoing thoughts, let the use of 
the word " womb," as a figure of speech, be called into 
relation in all of the works under review. 

In Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv., sc. 2, p. 412, we have : 

"This is a gift that I have, simple, simple ; a foolish extravagant 
spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, 
motions, revolutions : these are begot in the ventricle of memory, 
nourish'd in the womb of pla mater, and deliver'd upon the mellow- 
ing of occasion : but the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, 
and I am thankful for it. " 

See the use of this word " mellow" in Addison, vol. v., 
p. 227. 
In Komeo and Juliet, Act ii., sc. 3, p. 74, we have : 

" The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb ; 
What is her burying grave, that is her womb ; 
And from her womb children of divers kind 
We sucking on her natural bosom find : 
Many for many virtues excellent, 
None but for some, and yet all different." 

Bacon says : '' If therefore,' the theories we have men- 
tioned were not like plants, torn up by the roots, but 
grew in the womb of nature, and we/e nourished by her, 

^ See our quotation from The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 69. 

^ The words "bridle," "snare," "spur" were frequent figures 
of speech with Bacon, and they are spread everywhere in the plays. 
In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 350, we have: "For though to let 
loose the bridle to lusts, while our opinions are against such things, 
is bad ; yet to sin, and plead a toleration so to do, is worse : the one 
stumbles beholders accidentally, the other leads them into the 



KELATIONAL FACTS. 143 

that which for the last two thousand years has taken place 
would never hare happened, namely, that the sciences 
still continue in their beaten track, and nearly stationary, 
without having received any important increase, nay, hav- 
ing, on the contrary, rather bloomed under the hands of 
their first author, and then faded away." (Novum Or- 
ganum, Book 1, Aph. 74.) 

Again he says : '^ I mentioned a little before (in speak- 
ing of forms) the two different emanations of souls, which 
appear in the first creation thereof ; the one springing 
from the breath of God, the other from the wombs of the 
elements." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 396.) 

Again : ''For I never saw but that business is like a 
child which is framed invisibly in the womb ; and if it 
come forth too soon, it will be abortive." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. v., p. 237.) And on p. 303 of the same volume : 

*' The time since was due to another kind of deliverance 
too ; which was that some causes of estate which were in 
the womb might likewise be brought forth, not for matter 
of justice, but for reason of state." 

Even in the youthful treatise the Anatomy of Abuses, 
he at p. 2 says : " Dame Nature brings us all into the world 
after one sort, and receiveth all again into the womb of our 
mother (the bowels of the earth)." 

And in his Defoe's *' Storm," referring at p. 262 to 
David's search into nature, he says : "Thus in another 
place we find him dissecting the womb of his mother, and 
deep in the study of Anatomy."' 

In the Venus and Adonis we have subtly couched ele- 
ments, wo think, touching the serpent and dove of Bacon's 
metaphysics.^ And note in it Baconian words and ex- 

^ Read in this connection Bacon's interpretation of the fable en- 
titled " Deucalion or Restoration ;" and where may be found the 
origin, we think, of the thought as to the burden upon the back in 
The Pilgrim's Progress and the " more offenses at my back," etc., in 
Hamlet. 

'^ In his fable entitled Cupid ; or the Atom, Bacon says : " For 
Venus excites the general appetite of conjunction and procrea- 
tion ; Cupid, her son, applies the appetite to an individual object. 
From Venus, therefore, comes the general disposition, from Cupid 
the more exact sympathy. Now the general disposition depends 
upon causes near at hand, the particular sympathy upon prin- 
ciples more deep and fatal, and as if derived from that ancient 
Cupid, who is the source of all exquisite sympathy." He here also 
says : " The blindness likewise of Cupid has an allegorical meaning 



144 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

pressions, as ^' sovereign salve," '^ leaden appetite," *' hard 
favor'd," " vai^onrs," "contemn," " swelling passion," 
"provoke a pause," "womb," "treble wrong," "dull 
earth," "engine," "therefore no marvel," "noth- 
ing worth," ^ " double wrong," " ill presage," " night of 
sorrow," "fear of slips," "honour's wrack," "out of 
hope," " maw," " kindle," " be ruled by me," " shifts," 
"much ado," "so fair a hope," "undone," " embrace- 
ments," "good morrow," " swelling dugs," "sinews," 
" sovereign plaster," " consort," ^ " doteth," "heavy tale," 
" match," ' etc.; likewise note the words " snail,"* " hunt 
the boar,"** etc. 

full of wisdom. For it seems that this Cupid, whatever he be, has 
very little providence ; but directs his course, like a blind man 
groping, by whatever he finds nearest ; which makes the supreme 
divine providence all the more to be admired, as that which con- 
trives out of subjects peculiarly empty and destitute of providence, 
and, as it were, blind, to educe by a fatal and necessary law all the 
order and beauty of the universe." 

^ In Bacon's Philosophical Works, vol. ii., p. 533, we have : " Belike 
it is cast away as nothing worth ; inquire better of it. for the discovery 
of the nature of the plant." The expression may be again noted in 
Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 116. 

^ " So we see that voices and consorts of music do make an har- 
mony by mixture, which colours do not. " (Bacon's Natural History, 
sub. 224.) 

' " As for air, when it is strongly pent, it matcheth a hard body." 
(Bacon's Natural History, sub. 164.) 

■* Promus, 138. Not like a crab, though like a snail. In Love's 
Labour's Lost, Act iv., sc. 3. p. 429, we have : 

" Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible. 
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails, "etc. 
Promus, 1230. Hot cockles. And in the same act and scene, p. 431, 
we have : 

" Bir. Alton s ! Allans! — Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn," etc. See 
The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 288. In the Taming of the Shrew, Act 
iv., sc. 3, p. 480, we have : 

" A velvet dish : — fie, fie ! 'tis lewd and filthy : 
Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut shell," etc. 
See the use of this word cockle in the play of Hamlet, Act iv., sc. 5, 
p. 321. And in Addison, vol. iii., p. 140, we have: "I would 
gladly know in particular what notion you have of hot cockles ; as 
also whether you think that questions and commands, mottoes, 
similes, and cross purposes, have not more mirth and wit in them 
than those public diversions which are grow^n so very fashionable 
among us." (See "snail" and "cockle,'' Addison, vol. ii., pp. 155 
and 421.) If we might leave the line which we have marked out to 
ourselves any amount of like material might be introduced. 

^ Promus, 830. (To send a wild boar to the fountains, a south 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 145 

Returning now from this digression from our sketch, as 
to the father and mother of Sir Francis Bacon, we next 
introduce some thoughts touching his uncle, Sir William 
Cecil ; in other words, Lord Burghley, and who had no 
inconsiderable influence upon his thoughts and life. 

Burghley was indeed the foremost minister of the crown 
during nearly the whole of Elizabeth's long reign, and had 
even maintained a correspondence with her previous to 
her coming to the throne. He prepared the proclama- 
tion declaring her queen upon the death of her sister. 
Queen Mary. At Mary's accession he signed the instru- 
ment makiug over the crown to Lady Jane Grey, a then 
claimant, and niece of Henry the Eighth ; and though he 
signed it but as a witness dangers threatened him on every 
hand during her reign. He was a son of Robert Cecil, 
Master of the Robes to Henry the Eighth, and was born 
in 1520. Having been educated at Cambridge, he entered 
Gray's Inn at the age of twenty-one. Through the friend- 
ship of Somerset, Protector during Edward the Sixth's 
minority, he was made Secretary of State. He shared 
Somerset's imprisonment, but later regained his office 
under Northumberland. Upon Elizabeth's accession he 
was at once made Secretary of State and a member of her 
privy council. He continued as Secretary of State until 
1572, at which time he became Lord High Treasurer of 
England, which office he held until his death in 1597. 
He kept clear from religious difficulties by displaying no 
dislike to Catholics, and he is said to have had no special 
devotion to any particular form of doctrine. In this re- 
gard he did not enter into the deep passion of his times. 
During Mary's reign, he by great sagacity maintained his 
connection with his old friends, by manifesting slight if 
any opposition to the court party, and he may indeed be 
said to have been very worldly wise. Following the acces- 

wind to the flowers. Said of those who bring evil upon themselves ; 
w^ish for what would do them harm.) From Addison, vol. iii,, p. 
207, we quote : " ^Ye had the fortune to see what maybe supposed to 
be the occasion of that opinion which Lucian relates concerning this 
river — viz., that this stream, at certain seasons of the year, especially 
about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour ; which the heathens 
looked upon as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for 
the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the moun- 
tains, out of which this stream rises." As to the wild boar and 
flowers, see Addison, vol. ii., p. 363, and vol. iv., p. 67. 



146 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

sion of Elizabeth he apparently grew more pronounced 
toward the reformed faith. It is said of him that he 
would not scruple at any treachery to gain the secrets of 
his enemies, and that his emissaries were everywhere. It 
is still said of him that he was incorruptible in office. 
Concerning his mode of living, Hume, in his History of 
England, vol. iii., p. 577, says : " Burghley 'entertained 
tlie queen twelve several times in his country house, where 
she remained three, four, or five weeks at a time. Each 
visit cost him two or three thousand pounds. The quan- 
tity of silver plate possessed by this nobleman is surprising 
— no less than fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds weight, 
which, besides the fashion, would be above forty-two thou- 
sand pounds sterling in value." 

Already have we seen England's growing fears touching 
the Queen of Scots ripen into a statute enacted by the 
Parliament addressed by Sir Nicholas Bacon in 1571 ; and 
now in 1584 papers in her interest were detected showing 
some treasonable project in the course of formation, and 
so more stringent acts were passed concerning her, as well 
as for the greater protection of the person of Queen Eliza- 
beth. 

Philip the Second of Spain and husband of Queen Mary, 
now deceased, had early m Elizabeth's reign offered him- 
self to her in marriage, and with the view, doubtless, of 
again returning England to Catholic rule. This proposal, 
as all marriage proposals to Elizabeth, being rejected, was 
deeply resented by Philip, who thereupon resolved not 
only upon a gigantic invasion of England, but upon the 
overthrow of her Protestant queen and cause. The long- 
delayed preparations for the event were thought to have 
been due to plottings against Elizabeth centred about the 
Queen of Scots, held still in custody, but which were rap- 
idly quickened and ripened by her trial and execution, 
which took place at Fotheringay Castle, February 7th, 
1587. This now rapidly moved enterprise by Philip is 
said not to have been wholly due to the mentioned refusal 
of his suit, as complaints were made by him of what he 
regarded as depredations committed by the English, and 
especially by their great admiral, Sir Francis Drake, on 
the Spanish possessions in South America, and even upon 
the coast of Spain itself. Philii)'s great fleet for the men- 
tioned undertaking consisted of sixty thousand men and 



EELATIO^^AL FACTS. 147 

one hundred and thirty vessels, larger than had ever been 
seen in England. It was now proposed to sweep England 
from the seas, ravage her coasts, burn her towns, and de- 
throne her Protestant queen. The Pope blessed the ex- 
pedition and offered the sovereignty of England as a prize 
to the conqueror, and the Catholics throughout Europe 
were so confident of the success of this renowned enter- 
23rise that they called the great lieet which was to accom- 
plish it the Invincible Armada. It sailed from Lisbon for 
the English coast in May, 1588. Its anticipated arrival 
filled England with terror. Her undaunted queen in 
person superintended the preparations for the struggle, 
and having mustered the forces of the kingdom to the 
number of forty-five thousand men, she at the camp at 
Tilbury, on horseback, rode through the ranks, and per- 
sonally addressed the soldiers in bold and animated lan- 
guage, saying, among other things : " I know that I have 
but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the 
heart of a king, and of the King of England, too, and 
think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of 
Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realms ; 
for which, rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, 
I myself will take up arms ; I myself will be your general, 
judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the 
field." 

The fleet suffered from a storm when off the Erencli 
coast, and in passing through the English Channel was 
severely harassed by the light English vessels. Having by 
a further storm been compelled to anchor at Calais, it was 
suddenly throwai into the most utter confusion by means 
of a number of fire-ships prepared by the English, and so 
placed as to be driven by the violent winds into the very 
midst of this great fleet, so that the Spanish admiral no 
longer thought of victory but of escape from the flames 
and sulphurous stenches from these burning hulks. As a 
stout wind from the south prevented his return, he coasted 
along the shores to the north of Scotland and Ireland, and 
w^as finally driven by the winds upon the coasts of Norway 
and Scotland. When off the Irish coast another great 
loss was experienced by the storm, and finally but a few 
scattered and straggling vessels from this mighty fleet 
reached Spain to tell its terrible fate. Had these events 
or the causes that lead to them, any influence upon the 



148 KELATIOKAL FACTS. 

play of Hamlet ? This defeat of the Armada, chiefly by 
the winds, was in England regarded as providential. 

From this time the commerce and naval power of Spain 
began to decline, notwithstanding its rich mines of gold 
and silver in the New World, though these were, let it be 
remembered, somewhat exhausted at the death of Philip, 
in 1598. These failures, though not at first apparent, 
involved all of Philip's other schemes. Of it he said : 
" I sent my ships against men, not against the billows. 
I thank God that I can place another fleet upon the sea." 
This, however, he did not prove able successfully to do. 
During his reign he was the most formidable and the fore- 
most figure in European history, and he is said to have im- 
pressed upon the Spanish character much of that distinctive- 
ness wherein it so greatly influenced European culture. 

Following this event England is said to have tolerated, 
under Drake, Hawkins, Howard, Cavendish, Sir Walter 
Raleigh, and others if it did not encourage, a kind of 
inratical retaliation upon the Spanish possessions (see 
some of the works now attributed to Defoe) and which 
led the way to England's maritime and colonial glory, as 
Knight in his History of England says. He also says : 
" If they plundered somewhat too freely and destroyed 
too mercilessly, they had large national objects in view 
as well as private lucre." Chapters 7 and 8 of Knight's 
History of England, vol. iii., and Hume, vol. iii., pp. 
494-96, will throw much light upon this branch of our 
subject, as in due time we shall claim to the reader that 
the piratical stories in the Defoe literature were products 
of this, and not of the Defoe period, and that they have 
more than a single object in view. 

This was indeed an age of discovery. Drake, in 1577, 
in his " Golden Hind" had undertaken the circuit of the 
globe. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh, under a patent from 
Queen Elizabeth, sent out an expedition which visited the 
southern parts of J^ortli America north of the Spanish pos- 
sessions, and the queen upon its return gave to the explored 
country, in pursuance of her claim as the virgin queen, 
the name of Virginia. The following year he sent an- 
other expedition which planted on Roanoke Island, Caro- 
lina, the first English colony in the New World, but 
which was abandoned the year after. In 1587 he made 
a further attempt by sending three vessels and one hun- 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 149 

clred and fifty men and women, with a governor and conn- 
sei for the colony, whicli arrived on tlie coast of North 
Carolina in Jnly, but what became of the colony was 
never known. Expeditions were sent also by other coun- 
tries. In 1602 an English expedition was sent to the New 
England coast, which visited Cape Cod and Martha's 
Vineyard. But no permanent English colony was plant- 
ed in America, let it be remembered, during the reign of 
Elizabeth. During the next reign, the reign of James 
the First, several were sent out and permanently estab- 
lished, as we shall see further on, and for which the reign 
of James is chiefly noted. 

Burghley is said to have taken much interest in many 
of the mentioned events. He advised prompt and vigorous 
action as to the Queen of Scots. By his official position 
he was the chief adviser of the queen, and is said nowhere 
to have shown greater sagacity than in his skill in neutral- 
izing her fancies and variability, who, though possessed 
of the high qualities of a sovereign, was still by no means 
wanting in those personal vanities belonging to her sex. 
There were two subjects upon which she seems ever to 
have been extremely sensitive — namely, the subject of her 
successor and the subject of her marriage. Early in her 
reign she seems to have set her face against marriage, de- 
termined, as she said, to live and die a virgin queen. 
But Burghley did not hesitate to urge her marriage, though 
against her enjoined silence, and a paper presented to her 
upon the subject in 1584 or 1585 is extant ; and wherein 
is sketched a great and noble policy for the Protestant 
or reformed faith. But this paper was evidently a prod- 
uct from the vigorous pen of the nephew Francis. That 
Bacon was author of this paper and of others attributed 
to Burghley, see Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 43-47. 

By this policy preparations were to be made for war 
both by sea and land ; wealth and honor were to be applied 
to touch and attach the hearts of the foremost men of the 
nation, and no longer wasted on useless favorites ; Ireland 
was to be treated in a conciliatory spirit and with attentive 
care ; and lastly, there was to be a general grand alliance 
of all Protestant countries against the Catholics. Such 
an alliance Bacon, toward the close of the reign of James 
the First again advocated against the Turks, as we shall 
see in his fragment entitled The Holy War. 



150 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

Much fear was entertained during a large portion of 
Elizabeth's reign, lest, in case of her death, unmarried and 
without issue, Enghmd miglit again be at the mercy of a 
Catholic prince ; and hence the necessity for a Protestant 
heir to the throne of England, was a burden from which 
Sir Francis Bacon found relief in many a variably ex- 
pressed so-called Shakespeare sonnet, and covertly de- 
signed, doubtless, to meet the eye of the queen. 

From man}^ such, and written evidently at different 
periods during her reign, we quote the following, giving 
first Sonnet 7, which is in these words : 

" Lo ! in the orient when the gracious light 
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye 
Dotli homage to his new- appearing siglit, 
Serving with looks his sacred majesty ; 
And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, 
Resembling strong youth in his middle age, 
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, 
Attending on his golden pilgrimage : 
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, 
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day, 
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are 
From his low track, and look another way. 
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, 
Unlook'd-on diest, unless thou get a son." 

He here represents her loyal subjects looking upon her 
as upon the sun, but says their gaze is mortal, as the eyes 
that succeed or come after must lose her form and look 
unless they may find it in her issue ; and says, that their 
eyes in her increasing years will turn to her successor, and 
having no issue, her objective selfhood will be forever gone. 
Again, in Sonnet 13, he says : 

" O, that you were yourself ! but, love, you are 
No longer yours than you yourself here live : 
Against this coming end you should prepare. 
And your sweet semblance to some other give. 
So should that beauty, which you hold in lease,' 

' Bacon's unusual use of the word " lease" is found in several 
places in the sonnets. In sub. 390 of his Natural History he says : 
"Most odours smell best broken or crushed, as hath been said: 
but tlowers pressed or beaten do lease the freshness and sweetness of 
their odour." And in sub. 489 he says: ''And therefore I think 
rosemary will lease in sweetness, if it be set with lavender or bays, 
or the like." And in sub. 39 he says : " And therefore purgers lease 
(most of them) the virtue, by decoction upon the fire ; and for that 
cause are given chiefly in infusion, juice, or powder." See also this 
work, p. 34. 



KELATIOIs^AL FACTS. 151 

Find no determination : then you were 

Yourself again, after yourself 's decease, 

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

AVho lets so fair a house' fall to decay, 

Which husbandry in honor might uphold 

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day, 

And barren rage of death's eternal cold ? 

O ! none but unthrift. Dear my love, you know, 

You had a father ; let your son^say so." 

He here alludes, we think, to her father, Henry the 
Eighth. Again, in Sonnet 12, he says : 

" When I do count the clock that tells the time, 
And see the brave' day sunk in hideous night ; 
When I behold the violet past prime, 
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white ; 
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, 
Wliich erst from heat did canopy the herd ; 
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, 
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard ; 
Then of thy beauty do I question make, 
That thou among the wastes of time must go. 
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake. 
And die as fast as they see others grow : 
And nothing 'gainst time's scythe can make defence, 
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence." 

In the next two sonnets, 11 and 6, he refers, we think, 
to her fixed determination against marriage, and says : 

*' As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest 
In one of thine, from that which thou departest ; 
And that fresh blood, which yoimgly thou bastowest. 
Thou may'st call thine, when thou from youth convertest. 
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase ; 
Without this, folly, age, and cold decay : 
If all were minded'^ so, the times should cease. 
And threescore years would make the world away. 

^ In Bacon's Natural History, sub. 747, concerning this house of 
the human body, we have : "For there is the skull, of one entire 
bone ; there are the teeth ; there are the maxillary bones ; there is 
the hard bone that is the instrument of hearing ; and thence issue the 
horns ; so that the building of living creatures' bodies is like the 
building of a timber house ; where the walls and other parts have 
columns and beams, but the roof is, in the better sort of houses, all 
tile or lead or stone." 

2 Note Bacon's use of the word " brave" in every phase of these 
writings. 

^ This use of the word " minded" was not uncommon with Bacon ; 
and in his Letters, vol. vii., p. 124, we have the expression " if we 
had been so minded." 



152 RELATION-AL FACTS. 

Lot those, whom nature hath not made for store,* 
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish : 
Look, whom she best endow 'd, she gave the more : 
Which bounteous gift thou should'st in bounty cherish. 
She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby. 
Thou should'st print more, nor let that copy die." 

" Then, let not winter's ragged hand deface 
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill 'd : 
Make sweet some phial ; treasure thou some place 
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kilFd. 
That use is not forbidden usury. 
Which happies those that pay the willing loan ; 
That's for thyself to breed another thee, 
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one : 
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art. 
If ten of thine ten times retigur'd thee. 
Then what could death do, if thou should'st depart, 
Leaving thee living in posterity ? 
Be not self-willed ; for thou art much too fair 
To be death's conquest, and make worms thine heir." 

The next two sonnets, 9 and 2, will show, first, that no 
private person is referred to in the sonnets here quoted, and, 
second, that a public successor is sought. He says : 

" Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, 
That thou consum'st thyself in single life ? 
Ah ! if thou issueless shalt hap to die. 
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife ; 
The world will be thy widow, and still weep. 
That thou no form of thee hast left behind. 
When every private widow well may keep. 
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind. 
Look, what an unthrif t in the world doth spend, 
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it ; 
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, 
And, kept unus'd. the user so destroys it. 
No love toward others in that bosom sits, 
That on himself such murderous shame commits. ' ' 

" When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, 
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, 
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now. 
Will be a tatter 'd weed, of small worth held : 

' This word " store" is here used in its distinctive Baconian sense. 
In sub. 35 of Bacon's Natural History he says : " It is reported of 
credit, that if you lay good store of kernels of grapes about the root 
of a vine, it will make the vine come earlier and prosper better." 
And in sub. 573 we have : " It is certain that some plants put forth 
for a time of their own store, without any nourishment from earth, 
water, stone," etc. In fact this is ever his word for this place. 



RELATION"AL FACTS. 153 

Then, being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, 
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days ; 
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, 
Were an all- eating shame, and thriftless praise. 
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, 
If thou could 'st answer, ' This fair child of mine 
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse ' 
Proving his beauty by succession thine. 
This were to be new made' when thou art old. 
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold." 

See also Sonnets 1 and 4. 

Bacon says : " And as sometimes it coraeth to pass that 
men's inclinations are oj^ened more in a toy/ than in a 
serious matter, a little before that time being about the 
middle of Michaelmas term, her majesty had a purpose to 
dine at my lodge at Twicknam Park at which time I had, 
though I profess not to be a poet, prepared a sonnet 
directly tending and alluding to draw on her majesty's 
reconcilement to my lord ; which, I remember, also I 
showed to a great person, and one of my lord's nearest 
friends, who commended it." (Apology Concerning the 
Earl of Essex, Works, vol. ii., p. 336.) And thus much, 
at least, as to Bacon's having made sonnets concerning 
the queen. Also in a letter to the poet Sir John Davis, 
dated March 28, 1603, Bacon desires Davis to interest 
himself in his (Bacon's) behalf, and closes his letter thus : 
" So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I con- 
tinue your very assured. Er. Bacon." 

Mr. Spedding in afoot-note to this letter says : "The 
allusion to ' concealed poets ' I cannot explain. But as 
Bacon occasionally wrote letters and devices, which were 
to be fathered by Essex, he may have written verses for a 
similar purpose, and Davis may have been in the secret." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 65.) 

Concerning Elizabeth, Bacon says : " Now if there by 
any severer natures that shall tax^ her for that she suffered 
herself, and was very willing to be courted, wooed, and to 
have sonnets made in her commendation ; and that she 

' These words " new made" are thus used by Bacon : " You know 
the difference of .obliging men in prosperity and men in adversity, 
as much as the sowing upon a pavement and upon a farrow new 
made." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 406.) 

^ Let this use of the word toy be noted throughout. 

3 Note please this use of the word " tax" throughout, and particu- 
larly in the plays. 



154 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

continued this longer than was decent for her years ; not- 
withstanding, if you will take this matter at the best, it is 
not without singular admiration, being much like unto 
that which we find in fabulous narrations of a certain 
queen in the Fortunate Islands, and of her court and 
fashions, where fair purposes and love making was allowed, 
but lasciviousness banished. But if you will take it at the 
worst,' even so it mounteth to a most high admiration, 
considering that these courtships did not much eclipse her 
fame,^ and not at all her majesty ; neither did they make 
her less apt for government, or choke with the affairs and 
businesses of the public, for such passages as these do often 
entertain the time'' even with the greatest princes. But 
to make an end* of this discourse, certainly this princess 
was good and moral, and such she would be acknowledged ; 
she detested vice, and desired to purchase fame only by 
honorable courses. . . . Besides she was not a little 
j)leased if any one should fortune to tell her, that suppose she 
had lived in a private fortune, yet she could not have escaped 
without some note of excellency and singularity in her 
sex. So little did she desire to borrow or be beholding to 
her fortune for her praise. . . . Thus much in brief 
according to my ability : but to say the truth, the only com- 
mender of this lady's virtues is time ; which for as many 
ages as it hath run, hath not yet showed us one of the 
female sex equal to her in the administration of a king- 
dom." (Works, voL i., p. 400, Felicities Of Queen Eliza- 
beth.) 

^ Concerning this form of expression as to taking matters at the 
best or at tlie worst, we, from Timon of Athens, Act i., sc. 2, p. 41, 
quote as follows : 

" 1. Lady. My lord, you take us even at the best. 

" Apeni. 'Failh, for the worst is filthy, and would not hold taking, 
I doubt me." 

'^ Note this word " fame" in every phase of this literature, and in 
Addison see the essays upon the subject of fame. 

3 In " All's Well that Ends Well," Act ii., sc. 2, p. 304, we have : 

" Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it 
so merrily with a fool." 

^ In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 392, we have: "I promise you 
this was enough to discourage you ; but did you make an end 
there ?" And on p. 348 : " For after Mr. Greatheart had made an 
end with Mr. Fearing, Mr. Honest began to tell them of another, 
but his name was Mr. Self will." This form of expression %as quite 
common with Bacon. 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 155 

He also says : " For Queen Elizabeth being a princess 
of extreme caution, and yet one that loved admiration 
above safety ; and knowing the declaration of a successor 
might in point of safety be disputable, but in point of 
admiration and respecfc assuredly to her disadvantage ; 
had, from the beginning, set it down for a maxim of 
estate, to impose a silence touching succession. Neither 
was it only reserved as a secret of estate, but restrained by 
severe laws, that no man should presume to give opinion, 
or maintain argument touching the same : so, though the 
evidence of rigTit drew all the subjects of the land to think 
one thing ; yet the fear of danger of law made no man 
privy to other's thought." (Works, vol. i., p. 387.) 

Hence covertly by these sonnets was breathed forth, not 
merely the wish, but the inducements that should move 
her to wed. 

He also, in the mentioned Felicities of Queen Elizabeth, 
p. 397, says : " And this was the peculiar glory of this 
princess, that she had no props or supports of her govern- 
ment, but those that were of her own making. She had 
no brother, the son of her mother ; no uncle, none other 
of the royal blood and lineage that might be partner in 
her cares, and an upholder of the regal dignity. And as 
for those whom she raised to honour, she carried such a dis- 
creet hand over them, and so interchanged her favours as 
they still strived in emulation and desire to please her 
best, and she herself remained in all things an absolute 
princess. Childless she was, and left no issue behind her ; 
which was the case of many of the most fortunate princes, 
Alexander the Great, Julius C^sar, Trajan, and others. 
And this is a case that hath been often controverted and 
argued on both sides ; whilst some hold the want of chil- 
dren to be a diminution of our happiness, as if it should 
be an estate more than human to be happy both in our 
own persons, and in our descendants ; but others do 
account the want of children as an addition to earthly 
happiness insomuch as that happiness may be said to com- 
plete, over which fortune hath no power when we are 
gone : which if we leave children cannot be." 

Let this last thought be brought into relation with the 
subject-matter itself of the particular sonnets under re- 
view. In his essay entitled "Of Prophecy" he, as to 
Elizabeth's successor, says : " The trivial prophecy which 



156 RELATION"AL FACTS. 

I heard when I was a child and Queen Elizabeth was in 
the flower of her years, was 

" ' When hempe is sponne 
England's done.' 

Whereby it was generally conceived, that after the 
princes had reigned which had the principal letters of the 
word " hempe" (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, 
Philip, and Elizabeth) England wonld come to utter con- 
fusion ; which, thanks be to God, is verified only in the 
change of the name ; for that the king's style is no more 
of England, but of Britain." 

This prophecy may have sprung from circumstances 
mentioned by Bacon in his History of Henry the Seventh 
as to this particular line of kings. Henry the Seventh had 
two sons, Arthur, th& elder, and Henry, who succeeded 
him as Henry the Eighth. Catharine of Aragon before 
her union with Henry the Eighth was married to Arthur, 
who died soon after and without issue. Her parents, 
Eerdinand and Isabella of Spain, had opposed her marriage 
with Arthur, fearing trouble to the English throne from 
Edward, Earl of Warwick, the last of the male line of the 
Plantagenet kings, and who soon after was put to death, 
and with the view, it was thought (and hence, perhaps, 
the jorophecy), of making possible the marriage with 
Catharine, the Spanish princess, and concerning which 
Bacon says : " This was also the end, not only of this 
noble and commiserable person, EdAvard the Earl of War- 
wick, eldest son to the Duke of Clarence ; but likewise of 
the line male of the Plantagenets, which had flourished in 
great ro3^alty and renown, from the time of the famous 
King of England, King Henry the Second. HoAvbeit it 
was a race often dipped in their own blood. It hath re- 
mained since only transplanted into other names, as well of 
the imperial line, as of other noble houses. But it was 
neither guilt of crime, nor reason of state, that could 
quench the envy that was upon the king for this execu- 
tion : so that he thought good^ to export it out of the 

^ The expressions " thought good " and " think good " were com- 
mon with Bacon, And so in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 368, we 
have : " If you think good, we will turn in there."'' And on p. 304 
we have : " Now, when they had eaten and drank, and had chatted a 
little longer, their guide said to them, The day wears away ; if you 



EELATIONAL FACTS. 157 

land, and to lay it npon liis new ally Ferdinando, King 
of Spain. For these two kings understanding one another 
at half a word, so it was that there were letters showed 
out of Spain, whereby in the passage concerning the 
treaty of the marriage, Ferdinando had written to the 
king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of his siic- 
cession as long as the Earl of AYarwick lived, and that he 
was loth to send his daughter to troubles and dangers. 
But hereby, as the king did in some part remove the envy 
from himself ; so he did not observe, that he did withaP 
bring a kind of malediction and infausting upon the mar- 
riage, as an ill prognostic : which in event so far proved 
true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time 
after the marriage, and the Lady Catharine herself, a sad 
and a religious woman, long after, when King Henry the 
Eighth's resolution of a divorce from her was first made 
known to her, used some words, that she had not offended, 
but it was a judgment of God, for that her former mar- 
riage was made in blood ; meaning that of the Earl of 
AVarwick." (Works, vol. i., p. 370.) 

His mentioned essay on prophecy was not written until 
the looked-for event, the death of Elizabeth, had passed ; 
and hence he calls the prophecy trivial, though true to 
the extent of the fusing of crowns, James the First being 
the first joint monarch of the three countries, and which 
under him first received the name of Great Britain. 

But read what he says in Sonnet 14 as to the effects to 
truth or the Reformed faith, in default, through her, of an 
heir to the throne. He says : 

" Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck ; 
And vet, methinks, I have astronomy, 
But not to tell of good or evil luck, 
Of plagues, of dearths, or season's quality ; 
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, 
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind ; 
Or say, with princes if it shall go well. 
By oft predict that I in heaven find : 
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive ; 
And, constant stars, in them I read such art, 

think good, let us prepare to be going." Bacon says : " But this is 
a bravery, petulancy, wantonness, lustfulness, and riotousness of 
the people, to do as they think good, and in tliat respect the more 
severely to be punished." (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 89.) 
^ This word withal is found throughout these writings. 



158 KELATIONAL FACTS. 

As truth and beauty shall together thrive, 

If from thyself to store thou would'st convert ; 

Or else of thee this I prognosticate, — ^ 

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date." 

As there has thus far confessedly been no relational! zed 
interpretation given to the sonnets, as well as to make sure 
to the reader that we mistake not here our point, we 
further introduce Sonnet 15, wherein Bacon tells the 
queen that he will by his verse engraft her new, as time 
takes from her, though in the one following he again calls 
her mind back to the subject. He says : 

" When I consider, everything that grows 
Holds in perfection but a little moment ; 
That this huge stage presenteth naught but shows. 
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment ; 
When I perceive that men as plants increase, 
Cheered and check 'd even by the selfsame sky, 
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease. 
And wear their brave state out of memory ; 
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
Where wasteful time debateth with decay, 
To change your day of youth to sullied night ; 
And, all in war with time, for love of you. 
As he takes from you, I engraft you new." 

But in Sonnet 16 he says : 

" But wherefore do not you a mightier way 
Make war upon this bloody tyrant. Time, 
And fortify yourself in your decaj'^ 
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme ? 
Now stand you on the top^ of happy hours ; 
And many maiden gardens, yet unset. 
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, 
Much liker^ than your painted counterfeit : 

* This word " prognostic" Bacon uses in the foregoing quotation 
concerning the Earl of Warwick, 

* Bacon saj^s : " But princes upon a far other reason are best inter- 
preted by their natures, and private persons by their ends ; for 
princes being at the top of human desires, they have for the most 
part no particular ends whereto they aspire, by distance from which 
a man might take measure and scale of the rest of their actions and 
desires ; which is one of the causes that maketli their hearts more 
inscrutable." Promus 1006. (Long and intricate [is tlie story] ; 
but I will trace the top-most points of things — i.e. the chief facts.) 

^ As to this word " liker," we from Bacon quote as follows: 
" For I am sure no man was liker to be a pensioner than Somerset, 
considering his mercenary nature, his great undertaking for Spain 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 159 

So should the lines of life that life repair, 

Which this, time's pencil or mj pupil pen, 

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, 

Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.^ 

To give away yourself, keeps yourself still ; 

And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill." 

Thougli Sonnet 17, nexfc quoted, is upon the same sub- 
ject, it embraces much flattery, yet tame in comparison 
with what the queen was pleased, to receive, as we shadl 
see. He says : 

" Who will believe my verse in time to come, 
If it were fill'd with your most high desert ? 
Though yet, Heaven knows, it is but as a tomb. 
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. 
If I could write the beauty of your eyes. 
And in fresh numbers, number all your graces. 
The age to come w^ould say, ' This poet lies ;- 
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch 'd earthly faces.' 
So should my papers, yellow 'd with their age, 
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue ; 
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage. 
And stretched metre of an antique song : 
But were some child of yours alive that time. 
You should live twice, — in it, and in my rhyme." 

Among the younger associates of Lord Bacon may be 
mentioned Elizabeth's great favorite — Kobert Devereux, 
afterward Earl of Essex ; Bacon's cousin Robert Cecil, 
son of Lord Burghley, afterward in the reign of James 
made Earl of Salisbury ; and George Villiers, a favorite of 
James', and later and to the end of his reign the all-power- 
ful Duke of Buckingham. 

AYalter Devereux, the first Earl of Essex and father of 
Robert, was a distinguished but unfortunate nobleman, 
whose history may possibly have given some coloring to 

in the match, and his favour with his majesty." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. v., p. 265.) And in sub. 238 of Bacon's Natur-al History he 
says : " We see that beasts have those parts wdiich they count the 
instruments of speech (as lips, teeth, etc.) liker unto men than 
birds." 

^ Bacon says : " This only I will add, that learned men forgotten 
in state, and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of 
Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia," etc. (Works, vol. 
i., p. 167.) And on p. 156 he says : " Augustus lived ever in men's 
eyes." 

^ Promus, 564. Fair pleasing speech true. (Er. Ad. 421. Poets 
tell many lies.) Promus. 565. It is nought if it be in verse. 



160 RELATIO^-AL FACTS. 

the play of Hamlet, at least as to the mousetrap or side 
issue introduced into itJ Eobert, who became the second 
Earl of Essex, was born at Netherwood, Herefordshire, 
November 10th, 1567. He was educated at Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, between the years 1577 and 1581. He is 
said to have possessed a handsome person, and with many 
accomplishments appeared at court in 1584, and so not 
long before the play of Hamlet is supposed to have been 
written, and hence the story of his father's troubles was 
doubtless familiar to Bacon, thougli he does not appear to 
have had personal acquaintance with Essex until some few 
years later. We have thought that this side issue may 
possibly have been designed to tent the conscience of and 
to awe Leicester, Elizabeth's then favorite, in its perform- 
ance, and whose name was associated with the taking off 
of the elder Essex ; and that this method of introducing 
side issues into plays may have been the machine or engine 
referred to in our quotation from Defoe in earlier pages, 
but quickly abandoned by reason of its wrought furor in 
high places. This side issue was, at least, no part of the 
foundation story of this phiy, as presented in 1514, by the 
Danish historian. However this may be, let the word 
"machine," as used in Hamlet's lines to Ophelia, Act 
2, sc. 2, p. 250, be noted, wherein he says : 

" Doubt thou the stars are fire, 
Doubt that the sun doth move ; 
Doubt truth to be a liar ; 
But never doubt I love. 

0, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers ; I have not art to reckon 
my groans ; but that I love thee best, O most best ! believe it. 
Adieu. 

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is 
to him, Hamlet." 

Does the word " machine" as here used allude to the 
mentioned device "to make the devil unmask," or does it 
allude to the tables or mechanical methods of the Great 
Instauration ? If this word has not some covert meaning, 
what, please, is its meaning? We indeed find Bacon 
alluding to his philosophy as a machine. He says : " But 
if any one require works immediately, I say, without any 
imposture, that I a man not old, frail in health, involved 

^ See Britannica article as to Walter Devereux. 



RELATIOi^AL FACTS. 161 

in civil studies, coming to the obscurest of all subjects 
without guide or light, have done enough, if I have con- 
structed the machine itself and the fabric, thougii 1 may 
not have employed or moved it." (Works, vol. ii., p. 550.) 

Again, had Bacon in early life tendencies to love melan- 
choly by reason of matrimonial inclinings, quenched in 
consequence of his great felt mission, and to which he 
made all else subservient.^ Ample reasons may be found, 
in these writings to believe this.^ It was evidently the 
custom of the author of the plays, whoever he may have 
been, to select some historic framework, story, or transpired 
events so in harmony with his own existing mental states 
as to permit him, in an underplot, to weave them in con- 
junction with the chosen form or structure. And hence 
the outside and inside of most if not all of the plays. 

Concerning the words " sun" and " stars," as used in 
the foregoing quotation, it may be said that Bacon be- 
lieved not in the Copernican system, and hence, contrary 
to the accepted opinion, he believed that the sun and 
planets moved round the earth as a centre. He says : 
'^ The earth then being stationary (for that I now think 
the truer opinion), it is manifest that the heaven revolves 
in a diurnal motion, the measure whereof is the space of 

' He at least, in some pri^^ate notes made in 1608, of himself says : 
" When I was at Gorhambury I was taken much w*'' my symptome 
of melancholy and doubt of p'sent perill. I found it iirst by occa- 
sion of soppe w*^ sack taken midde meale and it contynued w<^ me 
that night and y« next mornyng, but note it cleared and went from 
me without purge and I turned light and disposed of myself." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. iv,, p. 57.) And on p. 79 he says : " I have 
found now twyse upon amendm* of my fortune disposition to 
melancholy and distast, specially the same happenyug against y« 
long vacacion when company failed and business both, for upon my 
Sollicito'" place I grew indisposed and inclined to superstition. Now 
upon Milles pace I find a relaps unto my old symptome as I was 
wont to have it many years agoe, as after sleepes ; strife at meats, 
strangnesse, clowdes," etc. And on pp. 53 and 54 it will appear that 
he was his own physician in this malady. Let these notes be read 
in connection with the Anatomy of Melancholy. As to the secret 
nature of these notes and not published until 1848, see pp. 18-37. 
These notes were in his own hand. 

2 In this connection let the play of " All's Well that Ends Well " 
be looked into a little. Its character of thought, as well as its style 
of expression, show it to have been written at two different and dis- 
tant periods of the author's life, its latter portion being evidently 
the work of later years. 

6 



162 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

twenty-four hours or thereabouts, the direction from east 
to west, the axis of revolution certain points (which they 
call poles) north and south." (Phil. Works, yol. v., p. 
551.) 

He believed that the stars were self-sustaining fire,' and 
that though flame at the surface of the earth is not self- 
sustained, it is so at the height of the moon, and that 
when pure it has a tendency to unite and gather into globes. 
He says : "In the air next the earth, flame only lives for a 
moment, and at once perishes. But when the air begins 
to be cleared of the exhalations of the earth and well 
rarefied, the nature of flame makes divers trials and ex- 
periments to attain consistency therein, and sometimes 
acquires a certain duration, not by succession as with us, 
but in identity ; as happens for a time in some of the 
lower comets, which are of a kind of middle nature be- 
tween successive and consistent flame ; it does not, how- 
ever, become fixed or constant, till we come to the body 
of the moon.^ There flame ceases to be extinguishable, 

' Bacon says : " For the fire of the stars is pure, peifect, and 
native ; whereas our fire is degenerate, like Vulcan thrown from 
heaven and halting with the fall. For if a man observe it, fire as 
we have it here is out of its place, trembling, surrounded by con- 
traries, needy, depending for sustenance upon fuel, and fugitive. 
Whereas in heaven fire exists in its true place, removed from the 
assault of any contrary body, constant, sustained by itself and things 
like itself, and performing its proper operations freely and without 
molestation." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 538.) In Addison, vol. iii., p. 
425, and see, please, the article, we have : " But if we yet rise higher, 
and consider the fixed stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that are 
each of them attended with a dilferent set of planets, and still dis- 
cover new firmaments and new lights, that are sunk farther in those 
unfathomable depths of ether, so as not to be seen by the strongest 
of our telescopes, we are lost in such a labyrinth of suns and 
worlds, and confounded with the immensity and magnificence of 
nature," 

2 Of his theory Bacon says : " It denies that the moon is either a 
ivatery oi' a dense or a solid body ; atfirming that it is of a flamy 
nature, though slow and weak, as being the first rudiment and last 
sediment of celestial flame ; flame admitting (as regaids density), no 
less than air and liquids, of immeasurable degrees." (Phil. Works, 
vol. v., p. 550.) As " The Mortal Moon" Bacon regarded himself as 
this first rudiment. In Addison, vol. iv., p. 129, we have: "It is 
to this majestic presence of God we may apply those beautiful expres- 
sions in holy writ : ' Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not ; 
yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.' The light of the sun, and 
all the glories of the world in whicli we live, are but as weak and 
sickly glimmerings, or rather darkness itself, in comparison of those 



RELATIOI^AL FACTS. 163 

and in some way or other supports itself ; but yet such 
flame is weak and without vigour, having little radiation, 
and being neither vivid in its own nature, nor much ex- 
cited by the contrary nature. Neither is it pure and entire, 
but spotted and crossed by the substance of ether (such as 
it exists there), which mixes with it. Even in the region 
of Mercury flame is not very happily placed, seeing that 
by uniting together it makes but a little planet ; and that 
with a great perturbation, variety, and fluctuation of 
motions, like ignis fatuus, laboring and struggling, and 
not bearing to be separated from the protection of the sun 
except for a little distance. When we come to the region 
of V^enus, the flamy nature begins to grow stronger and 
brighter, and to collect itself into a globe of considerable 
size ; yet one which itself also waits on the sun and cannot 
bear to be far away from him. In the region of the sun, 
flame is as it were on its throne, midway between the 
flames of the planets, stronger likewise and more vibrating 
than the flames of the fixed stars, by reason of the greater 
reaction, and exceeding intensity of union." (Phil. Works, 
vol. v., p. 548.) 

In Love's Labour's Lost, Act v., sc. 2, p. 445, we have : 

" Ros. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.' 
" King. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do ! 
Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine 
(Those clouds remov'd) upon our watery eyne. 

" Eos. O, vain petitioner ! beg a greater' matter ;' 
Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water. ^ 

splendors which encompass the throne of God." In the play of 
Henry YIII., Act iii., sc. 3, p. 290, we have : 

" King. If we did thiok 

His contemplation were above the earth. 
And fix'd on spiritual object, he should still 
Dwell in his musings ; but I am afraid 
His thinkings are below the moon, not worth 
His serious considering." 

Promus, 629. To cast beyond the moon. 

- Note the emphasis upon the moon throughout and see sonnet 
concerning *' the mortal moon." 

^ The expression " a greater matter" was common with Bacon. 
Promus, 988. {In great matters it is enough to liaxe icilled to achieve 
them. 'Tis not in mortals to command success.) 

3 Promus, 648. For the moonshine in the water. 



164 RELATIOJS'AL FACTS. 

" King. Then, in our measure but vouchsafe one change : 
Thou bid'st me beg ; this begging is not strange. 

" Bos. Play, music, tlien : nay, you must do it soon. 

[Music plays. 
Not yet ; — no dance : — thus change I like the moon. 

" King. Will you not dance ? How come you thus estrang'd ? 

" Ros. You took the moon at full ; but now she's chang'd.^ 

* ' King. Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. ' ' 

Concerning the play of Hamlet, it may be said that as 
originally written it was much shorter than now. 

Hudson says : "As to the general character of the ad- 
ditions in the enlarged Hamlet, it is to be noted that these 
are mostly in the contemplative and imaginative parts ; 
very little being added in the w^ay of action and incident. 
And in respect to the former there is indeed no comparison 
between the two copies : the difference is literally im- 
mense, and of such a kind as evinces a most astonishing 
growth of intellectual power and resource. In the earlier 
text, we have little more than a naked, though in the 
main, well-ordered and Orm knit skeleton, which in the 
Litter is everywhere replenished and glorified with large 
rich volumes of thought and poetry ; where all that is 
incidental or circumstantial is made subordinate to the liv- 
ing energies of mind and soul." (Hudson, vol. x., p. 177.) 

Seven years following Shakespeare's death and in 1623 
appeared the great first folio of these writings, though he 
himself is said to have done nothing either toward collect- 
ing or perpetuating them. Still, the folio contains volu- 
minous passages of thought not found in the quartos, 
while like passages in the quartos are wholly omitted 
from the folio. Who, then, but an author would have 
arrogated to himself the right to insert or interpolate 
matter like the following into this play, and which, as 
Hudson tells us, is nowhere found save in the folio of 1623. 
(Hudson, vol. x., pp. 260, 261, and note 33.) 

" Eos. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace : but there 
is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of 
question, and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't : these are now the 
fashion ; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them), that 
many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come 
thither. 

* ' Uam. What ! are they children ? who maintains them ? how are 

^ Promus, 892. (" Laconicas lunas." [You plead.] Spartan 
moons— because the Spartans, when asked to give the help promised, 
used to plead the phase of the moon, it not being full.) 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 1G5 

tliey escoted ? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they 
can sing ? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow them- 
selves to common players (as it is most like, if their means are no 
better), their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against 
their own succession ? 

" Bos. 'Faith, there has been much to do on b9th sides ; and the 
nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy : there was, 
for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the 
player went to cuffs in the question.' 

'^ Ham. Is it possible ? 

" Gull. O ! there has been much throv\'ing about of brains. 

" Ham. Do the boys carry it away ? 

" Eos. Ay, that they do, my lord ; Hercules and his load too." 

Again, who but an author would have assumed the right 
to have stricken from this play the following twenty-two 
most carefully wrought lines, and which, as Hudson tells 
us, are wholly omitted from the folio. (Hudson, vol. x., 
pp. 226, 227, and note 3.) 

" This heavy-headed revel, east and west. 
Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations : 
They clepe us drunkards, and with sx^inish phrase 
Soil our addition ; and. indeed, it takes 
From our achievements, thougli perform 'd at height, 
The pith and marrow of our attribute. 
So, oft it chances in particular men, 
That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, 
As, in their birth (wherein they are not guilty, 
Since nature cannot choose his origin) ; 
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion. 
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason ; 
Or by some habit, that too much o'erleavens 
The form of plausive manners ; — that these men, — 
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect. 
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, — 
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace, 
As infinite as man may undergo. 
Shall in the general censure take corruption 
From that particular fault : the dram of base 
Doth all the noble substance often dout, 
To his own scandal." 

Who struck these admirable lines from the great first ' 
folio .'^ and what may have been the occasion therefor? 
Did the feeling exist with Lord Bacon, following his 
troubles that the '' vicious mole^ of nature" here referred 

' See our quotation from Charles Eeade, p. 109. 

* In the Defoe History of Apparitions, T. Ed., pp. 280 and 287, 
may be found this same use of the word " mole," as applied to the 
Duke of Buckingham, and where it is called a token or mole. On 



166 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

to might some day be taken as alluding to himself, and 
hence omitted ? In this play the crowning cause of havoc 
takes its origin in the mismanagement of sex, and begins 
in the adulterous intercourse and murder of the king, 
Hamlet's father. Sex, according to the Baconian philoso- 
phy, sways, and if impure, corrupts every fortress, being 
stronger than kings whose crowns it sways. We judge 
that the Apocryphal gospels had much influence upon the 
mind of Lord Bacon, and especially ch. 8 of the Wisdom 
of Solomon and chs. 3 and 4 of 1 Esdras. His language 
is much enriched from these sources. 

But to return : upon the mentioned appearance of Essex 
at court, in 1584, honors were showered upon him without 
stint, and to an extent that erelong provoked both the 
jealousy and envy of other, and especially of elder and abler 
courtiers ; and among those somewhat piqued may be 
mentioned the Cecils, Raleigh, Cobham, the Earl of Not- 
tingham, and others. In 1585 he accompanied the Earl 
of Leicester, then favorite to the queen, to Holland, and 
there distinguished himself at the battle of Zutphen. In 
1587 he was appointed Master of the Horse, and the next 
year he was made General of the Horse and was installed 
Knight of the Garter. Upon Leicester's death, in 1588, he 
immediately succeeded him as chief favorite of the queen. 
In 1589 he, without the queen's consent, joined the ex- 
pedition of Drake and N orris against Portugal, but by a 
peremptory letter from her Avas required to return. He 
soon regained the royal smiles, in which he seems now to 
have thought he had property, and to be entitled to claim 
their exclusive movements. Soon after occurred his duel 
with ^Sir Charles Blount, Lord Montjoy, a rival to whom 
the queen had shown marks of favor. He in this encounter 
was not only disarmed, but received a wound in the thigh. 
In 1590 he, without the knowledge of the queen, married 
the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and as long as possible 
kept the event from her, but whose rage upon being in- 

p. 287 it is called a token, tlius : " Fame, tliougii with some privacy, 
says, that the secret token was an incestuous breach of modesty 
between the duke and a certain lady too nearly related to him, 
which it surprised the duke to hear of ; and that as he thought he 
had good reason to be sure the lady would not tell it of herself, so 
he thought none but the devil could tell it besides her ; and this 
astonished him so that he was very far from receiving the man 
slightingly or laughing at his message." 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 167 

formed of it is said to have known no bounds. In 1591 
he was appointed to the command of a force auxiliary to 
one formerly sent by Elizabeth to assist Henry the Fourth 
of France against the Spaniards. Though showing gal- 
lantry, he here again made a singular display of his want 
of discretion by sending a challenge to the Governor of 
Eouen to meet him in single combat. He was recalled 
from the command in January, 1592. In the Portugal 
and Lisbon campaign he also attempted this worn-out 
spirit of chivalry. He now for a few years spent most of 
his time at court, where on account of his own personal 
popularity, as well as his position as queen's favorite, he 
had much influence. In 1596 Philip the Second of Sjmin 
was making preparations for another invasion of England, 
and so a counter expedition, favored by Essex, though op- 
posed by Lord Burghley, was undertaken against Spain. 
The expedition sailed from Plymouth, June 1, 1596, and 
was successful in defeating the Spanish fleet, capturing 
and pillaging Cadiz, and destroying fifty-three merchant 
vessels. He here broke through the express orders given 
by the queen with reference to the command, and by this 
means claimed the glory of the enterprise, and again 
offered to maintain his right to the honor in single combat 
against Lord Howard, afterward Earl of Nottingham, 
then in command, or against his sons or any of his kin- 
dred. (See, please, Hume's History of England, vol. iii., 
pp. 495-501). 

At about this time a change in the queen's feelings 
toward him became apparent. She not only chided him, 
but forbade his publishing anything in justification of his 
conduct. His growing popularity with the people, to- 
gether with his now tendencies to assert his independence, 
coupled with the feeling that all along his professed at- 
tachments had been more of a mere selfish interest than 
of any real regard, had, doubtless, much to do with her 
now moods towards him. The threatened rupture his 
friend Bacon endeavored to avert by writing him a long 
and earnest but friendly letter of advice, and which shows 
earlier advice of a like nature upon the subject. To this 
letter we shall later have occasion to refer. The advice 
seems for a time to have been heeded and the cloud averted, 
and in the following year he was appointed Master of an- 
other expedition against Spain, which sailed from Ply- 



168 KELATIONAL FACTS. 

mouth July 9th, 1597 ; and though some trifling successes 
were gained, yet as the Plate fleet escaped him it was in 
the main a failure, and would have been wholly so but 
for the taking of three Spanish ships, which were said to 
be prize sufficient to defray the expenses of the expedi- 
tion. Upon his return he was again met with reproaches 
from the queen. At about this time Bacon's cousin, Sir 
Eobert Cecil, then much connected with Raleigh, was by 
the queen made Secretary of State, in preference to Sir 
Thomas Bodley, urged by Essex for that high position. 
She also conferred upon Lord Howard the earldom of Not- 
tingham, for the mentioned services at Cadiz, the chief 
honor of which was, as we have seen, claimed by Essex ; 
thus showing her intention not to continue his ascendency 
over his rivals. He had all along, in opposition to his 
friend Bacon's advice, thought he could get his ends 
served best by opposition and arrogance, and to which 
policy he had of late resorted. He now doubtless had his 
opinion somewhat conflrmed, as the queen appointed him 
Earl Marshal of England. Some year or more later, and 
in 1599, England was again threatened with a Spanish 
invasion, but by reason of Spain's weakened forces it took 
now a somewhat different form. The weak point in Eliz- 
abeth's government was Ireland, and here Spanish influ- 
ences were centring. Though Ireland had been under 
tlie dominion of England for upward of four centuries, 
hitherto it can be said to have been so little more than 
in name. It yielded no revenue, but annually absorbed 
much of England's revenue in its management and de- 
fence ; and its government had been a puzzle to the wisest 
of English statesmen. 

Roman influences seemed unalterably fixed in the minds 
of its rude population, and the Jesuits were ever scheming 
and negotiating with Spanish ministers for men and money 
with which to restore England to the ancient or Roman 
faith, and now that portion of Ireland known as Ulster, 
and backed by promised aid from Spain, was again in 
rebellion. ♦ 

With this ]3uzzle, the management of Ireland, Essex 
now sought to connect himself, though against the advice 
of his truest friends, Bacon included. Elizabeth had in- 
tended Lord Mont joy to command the expedition to sup- 
press this outbreak ; but Essex sought, and she finally, 



RELATIONAL FACTS. 169 

thongli reluctantly, it is said, conferred upon him the 
management of the enterprise and created him Lord 
Deputy of Ireland, with powers greater than had before 
been conferred upon that office, and in the management of 
which his father had, in 1576, closed his sad career. 

In a conference with the queen previous to the appoint- 
ment she gave him some taunting words, and which pos- 
sibly may have concerned his father's unfortunate experi- 
ence. However this may have been, he with a gesture 
not only of anger, but of contempt, turned his back upon 
her. She thereupon gave him a slap upon his face, and 
he left her presence, swearing that such an insult he would 
not have taken even from Henry the Eighth, her father. 
For some time he sulked and kept from court, but finally, 
as stated, received the appointment, 

Essex's enemies had studied his character, and knowing 
the difficulties as well as the discretion required in the 
mentioned undertaking, instead of, as heretofore opposing, 
they now in every way aided him in spreading his wings, 
and in raising the expectations of the queen by lauding 
every feature of the undertaking, thinking thus in his 
failure to be the quicker rid of him and of his, of late, 
too fulsome pretentions. It was likewise thought if by 
absence the queen had once leisure to forget the charms, 
to her, of his person, his lofty demeanor would soon bring 
disgust to a princess who commonly exacted such implicit 
obedience. Buoyed up with his popularity with the people, 
Essex was now erffcering with persistence upon those steps 
which cost him, not only the disgust and abandonment of 
his truest friends, but his life. For a history of his con- 
spiracy see ch. 11 of Knight's History of England, vol. iii. 

The queen at this time was sixty-eight years of age, and 
thoughts of a successor must of necessity have been enter- 
ing the public mind. James the Sixth of Scotland was 
likewise both at home and abroad scheming in various 
ways, and even with the Catholic party, for recognition as 
the future sovereign of Great Britain, and the wary young 
Cecil, whom he made his Secretary of State, and afterward 
Earl of Salisbury, was in secret correspondence with him 
for some time previous to Elizabeth's death ; and it has 
been thought by some that Essex's movements were de- 
signed to secure James's recognition. But before his re- 
turn from Ireland he had made preparations in the line 



170 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

of the plot which he finally attempted. Having himself 
descended m the female line from the royal family, he 
douhtless entertained thoughts that were a start once 
made, his popularity with the people might fix the public 
eye upon himself as a successor. He had been jealous of, and 
had ever sought to depress, military men. For some time 
previous to the overt act he had, and in a profuse manner, 
courted all classes of the people, Catholics included ; and 
whom under the queen he had been laboring to suppress. 
This of itself would have aroused the feelings of Bacon 
against him. Many of the Catholics engaged in the noted 
Gunpowder Plot early in the next reign, among whom 
were Catesby and Monteagle, were concerned in these 
treasonable projects. 

By the supposed detection of his plot it was forced for- 
ward before it was ripe, and so fell flat at its birth. He 
sought to seize the Tower of London, the person of the 
queen, and then to call a Parliament to shape things to 
his purposes, and he marshalled his co-conspirators to the 
number of three hundred in the streets of London, trust- 
ing, it is said, to an uprising in his favor. For this con- 
spiracy he and Southampton were, on February 19th, 1601, 
arraigned, as were thereafter some five others. 

All were found guilty, and all, Southampton excepted, 
were executed, Essex being executed in the Tower Feb- 
ruary 25th, 1601, while Southampton remained in prison 
until early in the next reign, when he was released by 
James, who came to the throne by Elizabeth's death, 
March 24th, 1603. 

The will of Henry the Eighth had excluded, or at least 
passed over the Scotch line. The claims of Arabella 
Stuart, also of that line, were favored by some in prefer- 
ence to those of James, and concerning whose claims 
Raleigh is said very unjustly to have lost his life. The 
advancement of Cecil by James upon his accession seemed 
a kind of surprise to all, their i^revious correspondence 
having been secret. Cecil now put aside or abandoned 
largely his old associates, including Raleigh, Cobham, Gra}^, 
and others. He it was, who was present during Elizabeth's 
last hours, and who said she indicated by signs her inten- 
tion that James should succeed her, " holding her hands 
joined above her head in the manner of a crown when his 
name was mentioned." 



EELATIONAL FACTS. 171 

The Cecils were wily men, and eminent for looking out 
for themselves in every enterprise, and the circumstances 
of James's accession do not warrant us in believing that 
there was in this instance an exception. 

Hume in his History of England, vol. iii., p. 587, says : 
'^ As Raleigh, Gray, and Cobham were commonly believed, 
after the queen's death, to have opposed proclaiming the 
king till conditions should be made with him, they were 
upon that account extremely obnoxious to the court and 
ministry ; and people were apt, at first, to suspect that the 
plot was merely a contrivance of Secretary Cecil to get rid 
of his old confederates, now become his most inveterate 
enemies." This brings us to a few words concerning 
Cecil. 

Robert Cecil, Secretary of State not only during the 
later years of Elizabeth, but afterward under James the 
First, was a son of Lord Burghley. He was born in 1550 
and died in 1612. His conduct toward certain of his 
cotemporaries, including Bacon, 'Essex, and later toward 
Raleigh, has been much censured. Toward Bacon, either 
by reason of his subtle ability to look through human 
dealings, or otherwise, he seems ever to have had some 
secret fear or jealousy. As he was deformed in person, it 
has by some been thought that this feeling may have arisen 
from a suspicion that Bacon was the author of and in- 
tended to characterize him as Richard the Third in that 
noted play. However this may have been, some covert 
opposition existed in his mind, and he thus ever stood 
with an opposing watchfulness over Bacon's advancement. 
He is said to have been possessed of little originality of 
thought, and to have followed but in the footsteps of his 
father. During the reign of Elizabeth he represented 
Westminster in Parliament, held a post in the French 
Embassy, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of 
Lancaster. He succeeded his father as Master of the 
Court of Wards, a position earlier held by Sir Nicholas 
Bacon and later sought by Francis ; aiid he succeeded 
Walsingham as Chief Secretary of State. 

Upon James's accession he was reappointed Secretary 
of State and had several dignities conferred upon him, 
including that of Earl of Salisbury. In 1008 he became 
Lord High Treasurer of England, the position held by his 
father in the previous reign, and thus became chief ad- 



172 BELATIONAL FACTS. 

viser of the crown both as to home and foreign affairs, 
and thus a kind of mediator between king and Parlia- 
ment. He seems able to have effected little, however, in 
harmonizing the conflicting interests of this reign, the 
commingling in, and struggle to shape which, cost Bacon 
his overthrow. 

The restraining influences of Elizabeth's frugality, as 
well of honors as of money, ceased with her death, as did 
her methods and foreign policy ; and especially toward 
Spain. With Cecil's, in other words, with Salisbury's 
death, May 24th, 1612, the traditions of the Tudors may be 
said to have been at an end, and new methods were at once 
inaugurated. From this time forth the government of 
James was little more than a kind of manipulated king- 
craft, through not a public minister, but through unscrupu- 
lous favorites. The first of these was Robert Carr, after- 
ward Lord Rochester and later made Earl of Somerset ; and 
who, in 1616, together with his wife, the countess, were 
convicted of the murder in the Tower of Sir Thomas 
Overbury, one cognizant of his secrets concerning foreign 
and other affairs. For his record see Enight's History of 
England, vol. iii., ch. 16. The second of these favorites 
was George Villiers, afterward the all-powerful Duke of 
Buckingham to the end of James's reign ; and who was 
assassinated early in the next. 

George Villiers, a son of Sir George Villiers, of Brookby, 
was born, August 20th, 1592, and died, August 23d, 1628, 
by the hand of one John Felton, who declared him a public 
enemy, though Felton is said to have had private griev- 
ances. In early life he was left without means, and his 
widowed mother educated him for a courtier's life, and in 
1614, at the age of twenty-two, he was brought to the 
notice of the king. By means of good looks and vivacious 
animal spirits he made a favorable impression. This was 
brought about by the purchase of the office of cup-bearer 
to the king, from the then favorite Carr, already men- 
tioned. He soon became a gentleman of the bedchamber, 
was knighted, and received a pension of £1000 a year, and 
upon the accusation of Carr or Somerset with the murder 
of Overbury, hereafter considered, he at once succeeded 
to his place as chief favorite of the king. Somerset had 
connected himself intimately with the party that sought a 
close alliance with Spain, and hence all who felt an op- 



KELATIONAL FACTS. 173 

posing interest looked with a favorable expectancy upon 
the new favorite, though in this doomed to disappoint- 
ment, as we shall see. 

As yet, however, he had manifested no formed political 
or religions tenets. These in various ways Bacon sought, 
though unsuccessfully, to influence. Later he attempted 
this in his mentioned A. D. B. Mask, by a kind of subtle 
half warning, and by the whipping of faults toward which 
he was then stoutly drifting. 

In August, 1616, he was raised to the peerage as Vis- 
count Villiers. In January, 1617, he became Earl of 
Buckingham. In January, 1618, he became Marquis of 
Buckingham, and estates were settled upon him by the 
new methods of the king, whose screen he became, to the 
value of £15,000 a year, so that it was said, the Earl of 
Pembroke excepted, he was now the richest nobleman in 
England. 

Knight says of him : '' When Somerset sold the office 
of cup-bearer to George Villiers, one of che sons of a 
Leicestershire knight, he appears to have forgotten that 
another might supplant him in the favour of the king 
who dwelt on ' good looks and handsome accoutre- 
ments.' The cup-bearer was a dangerous rival. ' His 
6rst introduction into favour,' says Clarendon, * was purely 
from the handsomeness of his person.' The history of 
the country, to the end of this reign, is in great part the 
personal history of George Villiers, — the adventurer, who 
had in his capacity of the king's cup-bearer been ' ad- 
mitted to that conversation and discourse with which that 
prince always abounded at his meals/ In a few weeks, 
continues Clarendon, he mounted higher ; ' and being 
knighted, without any other qualifications, he was at the 
same time made gentleman of the bedchamber and knight 
of the order of the garter ; and in a short time (very short 
for such a prodigious ascent) he was made a baron, a vis- 
count, an earl, a marquis, and became lord high admiral 
of England, lord warden of the cinque-ports, master of 
the horse, and entirely disposed of all the graces of the 
king, in conferring all the honours and all the offices of 
three kingdoms without a rival." (Knight's History of 
England, vol. iii., p. 298.) 

And we think the facts yet to be presented will show 
that under the methods of James he became a mere screen, 



174 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

and one which ultimately James himself became unable to 
adjust. 

IS^one were now allowed to receive either position or 
promotion, who did not in some way pay tribute to him, 
and thus, independent of Parliament, as we shall see, the 
urgent wants of ,.the king during the last half of this 
reign were largely supplied. Even under Somerset the 
offices were shamelessly sold without stint. (See Knight, 
vol. iii.,p. 298.) 

In 1618 Buckingham was married to Lady Catherine 
Manners, daughter of the Earl of Rutland, and she, though 
conforming outwardly to the forms of the English Church, 
was yet known to be devoted to the ancient or Catholic 
faith. During this and the next year, 1619, the year in 
which our mentioned A. D. B. Mask was put forth, Buck- 
ingham began to assume an independent political position, 
upon which this work was, we judge, designed to exercise 
a check. 

James's son-in-law, Frederick the Fifth of Germany, 
had this year, and to the great discomfiture of Spain, ac- 
cepted the crown of Bohemia, now in revolt, and which 
was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War which fol- 
lowed. The battle between Romanism and Protestantism 
seemed now likely to be fought anew. Earlier a touch 
of warning had been given in that globe of relations, the 
play of Hamlet. The Emperor of Germany was King of 
Bohemia, and his cousin, Ferdinand of Styria, was heir- 
elect. In the summer of 1618 the Protestant aristocracy 
of Bohemia, upon a dispute about the suppression of Prot- 
estant churches on ecclesiastical lands, and which was held 
to be a breach of charter, rose against the government, 
broke in upon the Board of Regency as they sat in coun- 
cil, threw three of its members out at the window, and 
established a Directorate of thirty members, and ap- 
pealed to all of the Protestant powers of Europe for sup- 
port. Spain in her policy sided with the emperor, and 
so took part in crushing the Bohemian rebellion. Mr. 
Spedding says : ^' The Bohemian quarrel had hitherto 
concerned England only as it affected the progress of the 
reformed religion and the peace and prosperity of Europe. 
She had as yet no separate or selfish interest in the issue. 
But she was now about to be drawn into the game, by no 
fault of her own, under very inconvenient conditions. On 



RELATIOI^AL FACTS. 175 

the 10th of March 1619, by the death of the Emperor 
Matthias, Ferdinand of Styria had succeeded, in virtue of 
a previous election, to the crown of Bohemia. On the 
16th of August — two days before he was unanimously 
elected Emperor of Germany — the states of Bohemia de- 
posed him, and elected in -his stead Frederick, the count 
Palatine of the Rhine, head of the Protestant union and 
James's son-in-law ; expecting of course that he would 
bring the strength of England with him. The English 
people were delighted at this triumph of Protestantism in 
the person of the husband of their favorite princess, and 
would have rushed to his support at once." (Bacon's Let- 
ters, vol. vii., p. 41.) 

In this, however, James was not with the people. 
Though outwardly professing to assist his son-in-law, his 
heart lay quite another way, and he was scheming vigor- 
ously to secure a marriage alliance between his son Prince 
Charles and the Infanta of Spain. The old dread of the 
Papacy was rekindled. Buckingham at first professed to 
be with the popular movement, but before the summer of 
1620 was at an end he had entirely changed front and was 
in the closest agreement with the Spanish Minister Gon- 
domar. Soon after and in 1621 occurred the notable out- 
break in Parliament against monopolies, whereby he and 
his dependants, his brother included, were robbing and 
oppressing the people. At first he pleaded for a dissolu- 
tion of the Parliament, but by crafty counsel was soon 
induced to believe that the wiser course was to put him- 
self at the head of the reform movement, wherein Bacon, 
the then chief pillar of Protestantism in Europe, was not 
only submerged, but at Buckingham's dictation was re- 
quired to surrender his cherished York House, the elegant 
home of his childhood, and which he did, hoping thereby 
again to secure the royal favor ; and Williams, the giver of 
the crafty advice, stepped into Bacon's shoes as Obancellor 
of ^England. During the winter of this and the succeed- 
ing year Buckingham was entirely in Gondomar's hands, 
and with great difficulty it was that Laud, in May, 1622, 
succeeded in arguing him out of a resolution to declaring 
himself a Roman Catholic' It was understood that the 

^ See Britannica article oa Buckingham, p. 418. 



176 RELATIONAL FACTS. 

next year, 1G33, the king's son Prince Charles was to vis- 
it Madrid, where, before giving him in marriage the hand 
of the Infanta Maria, the Spanish Court expected his con- 
version to the Catholic faith. Earlier, and on January 
13th, 1618-19, the following summary was by Gondomar 
submitted as a report to the Spanish Government touching 
the Bohemian issues. He said : " In spite of the suc- 
cess wliich had attended his efforts to keep James out of 
the hands of the war party, it was impossible to be free 
from anxiety for the future. It was true that the king's 
exchequer was empty ; but the nation was rich, and a dec- 
laration of war with Spain w^ould immediately be followed 
by a large grant of money. In a few days a powerful fleet 
could be manned and equipped. On the other hand, at 
no time had the Spanish navy been so entirely unprepared 
for war. The sea would swarm with English privateers, 
and whoever was master at sea would soon be master on 
land. The Dutch rebels, the French Huguenots, and the 
German ^heretics, would place James at the head of a 
powerful confederac}^, and it was impossible to say what 
injury he might not inflict upon the Catholic Church and 
the Spanish Monarchy. 

" At any price, then, the friendship of James must be 
secured. With that, everything would be possible, even 
the reduction of England to the Catholic Church. The 
marriage treaty must again be set on foot." (Bacon's Let- 
ters, vol. vii., p. 18.) 

Upon visiting Madrid in February, 1623, it soon became 
apparent that this long-sought andlong-talked-of marriage 
could not be effected, nor could the Palatinate, as James 
professed to hope, be in this way restored. The end which 
Spain had sought in it, however, the diversion of James, 
had been accomplished. And so in September Charles 
and Buckingham returned to England with the determina- 
tion to break at once with Spain, much to the rejoicing of 
the people, though to the great discomfiture of James, as 
Buckingham, and Charles the next heir to the throne, 
now took up a political position of their own ; and James 
was thus, by the popularity which this event for the 
moment gave to Buckingham, half persuaded, though 
more largely driven to declare all negotiations with Spain 
at an end ; and during the next year, 1624, Buckingham 



KELATIONAL FACTS. 177 

arranged a marriage alliance for the prince with Henrietta 
Maria of France. The screen was now_, and for some time 
had been, beyond the king's control ; and he evidently 
stood in mortal fear of him during the remainder of his 
reign, which ended by his death, March 27, 1625. 



LIFE OF BACOK 



Having now mentioned relationally some of the leading 
events and influences under which Sir Francis Bacon was 
born and lived, we come next to more intimate details in 
his personal history. These we introduce after our own 
method by first setting forth the views which he, Bacon, 
himself entertained as to his own personal gifts and aims 
in life, as in this he should have the right, we think, to 
be first heard. These should be read in connection with 
his noted letter to Lord Burghley, set forth in our intro- 
duction to this work. Thus pursued, light will the more 
readily fall upon his aims and motives and according to 
his own understanding of them. In his article entitled 
*' Of the Interpretation of Nature," he of himself says : 

"' Accounting myself born for the uses of mankind, and 
judging the case of the commonweal to be one of those 
things which are of public right, and like water or air lie 
open to all ; I sought what might be the most advan- 
tage to men, and deliberated what I was most fitted for 
by nature. I discovered that nothing is of such estima- 
tion towards thehuQian race, as the invention and earnest 
of new things and arts, by which man's life is adorned. 
For I perceived that, even in old times among rude men, 
the inventors and teachers of things rude were consecrated 
and chosen into the number of the gods ; and I noted 
that the deeds of heroes who built cities, or were legis- 
lators, or exercised just authority, or subdued unjust 
dominations, were circumscribed by the narrowness of 
places and times. But the invention of things, though it 
be a matter of less pomp,^ I esteemed more adapted for 
universality and eternity. Yet above all, if any bring 
forth no particular invention, though of much utility, but 
kindleth'^a light in nature, which from the very beginning 

^ Note the use of this word " pomp" in every phase of this litera- 
ture. 

' The word "kindle " is a conspicuous word with Bacon. Note 
this word as used in The Pilgrim's Progress, pp. 179 and 321. 



LIFE OF BACOiT. 179 

illuminates the regions of things, which lie contiguous to 
things already invented, afterwards being elevated lays 
open and brings to view all the abstrusest things ; he 
seems to me a propagator of the empire of man over the 
universe, a defender of liberty, a conqueror of necessities. 
But I found myself constructed more for the contemplations 
of truth than for aught else, as having a mind sufficiently 
mobile for recognizing (what is most of all) the similitude 
of things,' and sufficiently fixed and intent for observing 
the subtleties of differences, and possessing love of investi- 
gation, patience in doubting, pleasure in meditating, delay 
in asserting, facility in returning to wisdom, and neither 
affecting novelty, nor admiring antiquity, and hating all 
imposture. Wherefore I judged my nature to have a kind 
of familiarity and relationship with truth. Yet seeing 
by rank and education I was trained to civil affairs, and, 
like a youth, sometimes staggered in my opinions, and 
conceived I owed my country something peculiar, and not 
equally pertaining to all other parts, and hoped, if I ob- 
tained any honorable degree in the commonwealth to per- 
form witii greater help of ingenuity and industry what 
I had intended ;* I both learned civil arts, and with all 
ingenuousness and due modesty, commended myself to my 
friends who had some power. And in addition to this, 
because those things of whatever kind penetrate not beyond 
the condition and culture of this life, the hope occurred 
that I, born in no very prosperous state of religion, might, if 
called to civil offices, contribute somewhat to the safety 
of souls. But when my zeal was imputed to ambition, 
and my age was matured, and my disordered health also 
admonished me of my unhappy slowness,^ and I next con- 
sidered that I nowise fulfilled my duty, while I was neglect- 
ing that by which I could through myself benefit men, 
and applying myself to the things which depended upon 
the will of another, I altogether weaned myself from those 
thoughts, and wholly betook myself to this work, accord- 
ing to my former principle. Nor is my resolution dimin- 

^ To this feature of his mind Ve are indebted for the allegories 
under review, 

2 We think Bacon sought position chiefly for the vantage ground 
which it would give him in the anchorage of his work. 

^ This unhappy slowness is alluded to in one of the sonnets, which 
we shall soon have occasion to present. 



180 LIFE OF BACON". 

ished by foreseeing in the state of these times, a sort of 
declination of knowledge and ruin of the learning which is 
now in use ; for though I dread not the incursions of 
barbarians (unless, perhaps, the empire of Spain should 
strengthen itself, and oppress and debilitate others, by 
arms, itself by the burden) yet from civil wars (which on 
account of certain manners not long ago introduced, seem 
to me about to visit many countries^) and the malignity 
of sects, and from those compendiary artifices and cautions 
which have crept into the place of learning, no less a 
tempest seems to impend over letters and science. Nor 
can the shop of the typographer suffice for those evils. 
And that un warlike learning, which is nourished by ease, 
and flourishes by praise and reward, which sustains not 
the vehemency of opinion, and is the sport of artifices 
and impostures, is overcome by the impediments which 
I have mentioned. Far different is the nature of the 
knowledge whose dignity is fortified by utility and opera- 
tion. And from the injuries of time I am almost secure ; 
but from the injuries of men I am not concerned. For 
should any say that I savor things too high, I reply simply, 
in civil affairs there is place for modesty, in contempla- 
tions for truth. But if any one require works immedi- 
ately, I say, without any imposture, that I, a man not 
old, frail in health, involved in civil studies, coming to 
the obscurest of all subjects without guide or light, have 
done enough, if 1 have constructed the machine itself and 
the fabric, though I may not have employed or moved it. 
x\nd with the same candor, I profess that the legitimate 
interpretation of nature, in the first assent before arriving 
at a certain degree of generals, should be kept pure and 
separate from all application to works. Moreover, I know 
that all those who have in some measure committed them- 
selves to the waters of experience, seeing they were infirm 
of purpose, or desirous of ostentation, have at the entrance 
unreasonably sought pledges of works, and have thence 
been confounded and shipwrecked. But if any require 
at least j^articular promises, let him know^ that by that 

^ These innovated manners, and which he much feared, we shall 
find commented upon by him in portions of the Defoe literature. 

'^ This form of expression "'let him know" was quite common 
with Bacon, and so it occurs throughout these writings. In The 
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 69, we have : 



LIFE OF BACOK. 181 

knowledge, which is now in use, men are not skilled 
enough' even for wishing. But, what is of less moment, 
should any of the politicians, whose custom it is from 
personal calculations to estimate everything, or from ex- 
amples of like endeavours to form conjecture, presume to 
interpose his judgment in a matter of this sort I would 
have told that ancient saying, clauclus in via, cursorem 
extra via^n anteveriity and not to think about examples, 
since the matter is without example. But the method of 
j)ublishing these things is, to have such of them as tend 
to seize the correspondences of dispositions, and purge the 
areas of minds, given out to the vulgar and talked of ; to 
have the rest handed down with selection and judgment. 
Nor am I ignorant that it is a common and trite artifice 
of impostors to keep apart from the vulgar certain things 
which are nothing better than the impertinences they 
set forth to the vulgar. But without any imposture, from 
sound providence, I foresee that this formula of inter- 
pretation, and the inventions made by it, will be more 
vigorous and secure when contained within legitimate and 
chosen devices. Yet I undertake these things at the risk 
of others. For none of those things which depend upon 
externals concern me : nor do I hunt after fame, or, like 
the heretics, take delight in establishing a sect ; and to 
receive any private emolument from so great an under- 
taking, I hold to be both ridiculous and base. Sufficient 
for me is the consciousness of desert, and the very accom- 
plishment itself of things, which even fortune cannot 
withstand." (Works, vol. ii., p. 549.) 

Bacon's ends may thus be seen to have been centred 
deeply in the Reformed faith, in the commonwealth, and 
in philosophy. Concerning the good ends to be set before 
one's self he says : 

" For if these two things be supposed, that a man set 

" Come, let my carper to his life now look, 
And find there darker lines than in my book 
He findeth any ; yea, and let him know, 
That in his best things there are worse lines too." 

In Addison, vol. iii., p. 802, we have : " The guards let him know, 
in a very angry manner, that the house he was in, was not a cara- 
vansary, but the king's palace." Many of these distinctive forms 
of expression were doubtless adopted by Bacon for brevity's sake. 
By this form all detail as to the mode by which one is made to know 
may be avoided. 



182 LIFE OF BACON". 

before him honest and good ends, and again that his 
mind be resohito and constant to pursue and obtain them, 
it will follow that his mind shall address and mould itself 
to all virtues at once. And this indeed is like the work 
of Nature ; whereas the other courses I have mentioned 
are like the work of the hand. For as when a carver 
makes an image, he shapes only that part whereon he 
works, and not the rest (as if he be upon the face, that part 
which shall be the body is but a rude and unshaped stone 
still, till such time as he comes to it) ; but contrariwise 
when Nature makes a flower or living creature, she forms 
and produces rudiments of all the parts at one time ; so 
in obtaining virtue by habit, while we practise temperance, 
we do not advance much in fortitude, nor the like ; but 
when we dedicate and apply ourselves entirely to good and 
honest ends, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage 
towards those ends suggests and enjoins, we shall find 
ourselves invested with a precedent disposition and pro- 
pensity to conform thereto." (De Augmentis, ch. 3, Book 

Concerning his work he says : " I have held up a light 
in the obscurity of philosophy which will be seen centuries 
after I am dead. It will be seen amidst the erection of 
temples, tombs, palaces, theaters, bridges, making noble 
roads, cutting canals, granting multitude of charters and 
liberties for comfort of decayed companies and corpora- 
tions : the foundation of colleges and lectures for learning 
and the education of youth ; foundations and institutions 
of orders and fraternities for nobility, enterprise, and 
obedience ; but above all, the establishing of good laws 
for the regulation of the kingdom and as an example to 
the world." (Works, vol. i., p. 114.) 

The things in which this light is to be seen are more 
particularly set forth in the New Atlantis and in the intro- 
duction to the Anatomy of Melancholy, pp. 87-101. 

The more intimate personal events in Lord Bacon's 
history, which, in a work like the present, must neces- 
sarily be brief, open with his birth at York House, his 
father's London residence, January 22d, 1561, and are 
said to have closed with his death on the morning of 
Easter Sunday, April 9th, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of 
his age. Ilis death is said to have occurred in this some- 
what singular manner. On the morning of April 2d he. 



LIFE OF BACON". 183 

with the king's physician, having driven into the country, 
the thought occurred to him, the snow being upon the 
ground, as to whether flesh might not be preserved as well 
in snow as in salt. Thereupon he alighted from his coach, 
and, procuring a hen from a house near by, himself as- 
sisted in stuffing the body of the fowl with snow, and 
thereupon he received a chill and grew suddenly so ill as 
not to be able to return, and hence he was left at the Earl 
of Arundel's house at High gate, near by, where he is said 
to have been put into a bed that was damp, not having 
been recently slept in. This, I say, is the received version con- 
cerning the circumstances of his death. His letter to the 
Earl of Arundel, on finding himself situated as described, 
the earl being then from home, we give, as it is supposed 
to be his last piece of composition, and is in these words : 

** My very Good Lord : I was likely to have had the 
fortune of Cajus Plinius the elder, who lost his life by 
trying an experiment about the burning of the mountain 
Vesuvius. For I was also desirous to try an experiment 
or two, touching the conservation and induration of bodies. 
As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well ; 
but in the journey between London and Highgate I was 
taken with such a fit of casting as I knew not whether it 
were the stone or some surfeit, or cold, or indeed a touch 
of them all three.' But when I came to your lordship's 
house, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to 
take up my lodging here, where your house-keeper is very 
careful and diligent about me, which 1 assure myself your 
lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the 
better of him for it. For indeed your lordship's house 
was happy to me ; and I kiss your noble hand for the wel- 
come which I am sure you give me to it, etc. 

" I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship 
with any other hand than mine own ; but by my troth,'^ my 

^ This word stone will be found used in Defoe, in Addison, and 
in other parts of these writings. In Addison, vol. iv., p. 119, we 
have : " As this good man was troubled with a complication of dis- 
tempers, when he had the gout upon him, he used to thank God that 
it Was not the stone ; and when he had the stone, that he had not 
both these distempers on him at the same time." 
^ In Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 346, we have • 
" Now, as I can remember, by my troth, 
I never did her hurt in all my life." 

In Twelfth Night, Act i., sc. 3, p. 354, we have : 



184 LIFE OF BACOiq". 

fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I 
cannot steadily hold a pen." (Works, vol. iii., p. 91.) 

It was to this earl that The Anatomy of Abuses was 
dedicated in 1583. As to Bacon's funeral, though passing 
his last hours at so distinguished a residence, no account 
or trace has ever been found. As I write this, and by 
reason of certain data, the idea sweeps afresh into my 
thoughts, Can it be possible that Lord Bacon through the 
king, through flight, or otherwise could have sought and 
maintained so strict a seclusion from the world as to have 
in this deceived it? and for the purpose, among others, of 
seeing, as he says in one of the already quoted sonnets, 
what the world would say of his philosophy. Is it not at 
least a singular circumstance, as to England's greatest son 
and philosopher, that there should remain no word, trace, 
or remembrance as to this last sad rite ? and particularly 
so when we reflect upon the long delay in taking letters 
upon his effects, and which, though leaving a will, was 
finally performed only upon the application of creditors. 
As to his manuscripts, Mr. Spedding, in his preface to 
vol. iii. of Bacon's Philosophical Works, says : " What 
care, or whether any, was presently taken of these papers, 
I cannot learn. But it is probable that for fourteen 
months after Bacon's death, they remained locked up ; — for 
so long it was before any one had authority to act ; the 
executors named in the will refusing or delaying to assume 
their ojSice, and letters of administration being granted on 
the 18th of July, 1627, to Sir Robert Eich and Thomas 
Meautys, two of the creditors ; — and that then, or not long 
after they were placed in the hands of Mr. B( svile. This Mr. 
Bosvile, better known as Sir William Boswell, was sent soon 
after Bacon's death, to the Hague ; where he resided for 
several years as agent with the States of the United Prov- 
inces. He was knighted on the 18th of May, 1633, and 
died I believe in 1647. Wliether all Bacon's remaining 
manuscripts were sent to him, or only a portion of them is 
not known." 

Shortly before Bacon's reputed death the ''pinches," to 
use a Baconian word, were being brought upon Bucking- 

'' Mar. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' 
nights : your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill 
liours." 



LIFE OF BACO]^. 185 

ham. His impeachment in Parliament, and doubtless 
somewhat through Bacon's influence, had been effected 
some two months earlier and on February 6th, 1626. Not 
long prior to this event Bacon's relief from the Parliamen- 
tary sentence had been again thwarted. His creditors had 
been clam.orous and he had yielded to them, and had thus 
become greatly straitened for means. He had likewise 
long been delayed, and evidently through Buckingham, 
in the recovery of a claim made over to him, though due 
the crown from his half brother. Sir Nicholas Bacon, and 
which he is thought to have received at about this time. 

While Lord Bacon took all knowledge for his provi- 
dence, the Church of England was among his chief cares, 
as we shall see. As a theologian Macaulay says : *' What 
he was as a natural philosopher and a. moral philosopher, 
that he was also as a theologian. He was, we are con- 
vinced, a sincere believer in the divine authority of the 
Christian revelation. Nothing can be found, in his writ- 
ings, or in any other writings, more eloquent and pathetic 
than some passages which were apparently written under 
the influence of strong devotional feeling. He loved to 
dwell on the power of the Christian religion to effect much 
that the ancient philosophers could only promise. He 
loved to consider that religion as a bond of charity, the 
curb of evil passions, the consolation of the wretched, the 
support of the timid, the hope of the dying. But con- 
troversies on speculative points of theology seemed to have 
engaged scarcely any portion of his attention. In what 
he wrote on church government he showed, as far as he 
dared, a tolerant and charitable spirit.^ He troubled him- 
self not at all about Homoousians and Homoiousians, 
Monothelites, and Nestorians. He lived in an age in 
which disputes on the most subtle points of divinity ex- 
cited an intense interest throughout Europe, and nowhere 
more than in England. He was placed in the very thick 
of the conflict. He was in power at the time of the Sjaiod 
of Dort, and must for months have been daily deafened 
with talk about election, reprobation, and final persever- 
ance. Yet we do not remember a line in his works from 

^ His more extended views upon this subject will be found in the 
Defoe literature. 



186 LIFE OF BACON". 

whicli it can be inferred that he was either a Calvinist or 
an Arminian. While the world was resounding with the 
noise of a disputatious philosophy and a disputatious the- 
ology, the Baconian school, like Alworthy seated between 
Square and Thwackum, preserved a calm neutrality half 
scornful, half benevolent, and, content with adding to the 
sum of practical good, left the war of words to those who 
liked it." 

Note the non-controversial and non-sectarian character 
of The Pilgrim's Progress. 

As to these puzzles in divinity see Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, vol. i., pp. 149-51, and vol. ii., pp. 567-73. See 
also its introduction, pp. 20-24. 

Portraits of Bacon are extant, and one even at the early 
age of eighteen, when an amiable, hopeful, sensitive, bash- 
ful boy. In person he is said to have been well formed, 
of a middle stature, and possessed of features both expres- 
sive and handsome, his whole countenance, until some- 
what astringed by worldly anxiety, being singularly placid. 
In temperament he is said to have been so sensitive as to 
be affected by the least atmospheric changes, and hence, 
as might readily be expected, his health was somewhat 
delicate. 

His mental gifts and methods were indeed most subtle, 
singular, and rare. Subtle differences in resemblances 
and subtle resemblances in differences seemed the easy 
fruitage of his researches, and concerning which Macaulay, 
in his noted Essay on Bacon, says : " In wit, if by wit be 
meant the power of j^erceiving analogies between things 
which appear to have nothing in common, he never had 
an equal, not even Cowley, not even the author of Hudi- 
bras. Indeed he possessed this faculty, or rather this 
faculty possessed him, to a morbid degree. When he 
abandoned himself to it without reserve, as he did in the 
Sajnentia Vetertim, and at the end of the second book of 
the De Aiigmentis, the feats which he performed were not 
merely admirable, but portentous and almost shocking. 
On these occasions we marvel at him as clov/ns on a fair- 
day marvel at a juggler, and can hardly help thinking 
that the devil must be in him." 

Let these thoughts be particularly noted in connection 
with inwrappings in the plays, and let us take them with 
us as we go. Subtlety, however, is not inconsistent with 



LIFE OF BACOX. 187 

honesty, let it be remembered, thougli sometimes, when 
feared, we are inclined to think so. ^ 

An intense thirst for knowledge, a quick insight into 
all hnman motives, unceasing cogitations, combined with 
the most active attention, even to what would ordinarily 
be thought trifles, as evidenced in his Crusoe, make up a 
brief summary of Lord Bacon's mental gifts, concerning 
which Macaulay again says : 

" One of the most remarkable circumstances in the 
history of Bacon's mind is the order in which its powers 
expanded themselves. With him the fruit came first and 
remained till the last ; the blossoms did not appear till 
late. In general, the development of the fancy is to the 
development of the judgment what the growth of a girl is 
to the growth of a boy. The fancy attains at an early 
period to the perfection of its beauty, its power, and its 
fruitfulness ; and, as it is first to ripen, it is also first to 
fade. It has generally lost something of its bloom and 
freshness before the sterner faculties have reached matur- 
ity ; and it is commonly withered and barren while those 
faculties still retain all their energy. It rarely happens 
that the fancy and the judgment grow together. It 
happens still more rarely that the judgment grows faster 
than the fancy. This seems, however, to have been the 
case with Bacon. His boyhood and youth appear to 
have been singularly sedate. His gigantic scheme of 
philosophical reform is said by some writers to have been 
planned before he was fifteen, and was undoubtedly planned 
while he was still young. He observed as vigilantly, 
meditated as deeply, and judged as temperately when he 
gave his first work to the world as at the close of his long 
career. But in eloquence, in sweetness and variety of 
expression, and in richness of illustration, his later writ- 
ings are far superior to those of his youth." ^ 

^ Promus, 1127. (Every one wishes that to be destroyed which he 
fears.) 

■^ Let this sentence be called into distinct relation with the sup- 
posed writings of Joseph Addison, one of the actors of the Defoe 
period. These short essays are the polished products of Bacon's 
later years, and are replete with the subtleties of fable, allegory, 
religion, politics, and philosophy. In a foot-note to these writings, 
vol iv., p. 196, it is said : " His dreams and visions have more than 
all the grace and invention of Plato's. In this, at least, he was a 
true poet." 



188 LIFE OF BACON". 

Bacon not only knew much, but once knowing seldom 
forgot, and his incomparable imagination held not prec- 
edency, but moved ever with or in the train of his 
reason. It is said of him that he read much and winnowed 
quickly, and cared little either for novelty or for antiquity. 

In composition he seems to have sought chiefly clear- 
ness, then brevity and suavity. His narrational style, as 
displayed in the New Atlantis and in much of the Defoe 
literature, lay more in the direction of his recreation and 
leisure. By short, wisely chosen, and adroitly used words 
he made the mechanism of thought, and, in his Shake- 
speare the choicest • bits of it, yield quickly to his pur- 
poses.^ 

Concerning his tentative literary methods between 1592 
and 1595, Church in his Life of Bacon, in the English 
Men of Letters Series, p. 21, says : " Among the frag- 
mentary papers belonging to this time which have come 
down, not the least curious are those which throw light 
on his manner of working. While he was following out 
the great ideas which were to be the basis of his philoso- 
phy, he was as busy and as painstaking in fashioning the 
instruments by which they were to be expressed ; and in 
these papers we have the records and specimens of this 
preparation. He was a great collector of sentences, prov- 
erbs, quotations, sayings, illustrations, anecdotes, and he 
seems to have read sometimes simply to gather phrases 
and apt words. He jots down at random any good and 
pointed remark which comes into his thought or his 
memory ; at another time he groups a set of stock quota- 

' Promus, 1062. {Cast aside inflated diction and foot and-a-half- 
long words.) Promus, 1665. {Such power lies in proper arrange- 
ment and connection, so capable are the meanest, commonest, and plain- 
est things of ornament and grace.) Note this in connection with 
Crusoe. Promus, 1064. {And moulds his fiction in such a imy as 
blends Ms false toith what is true.) Promus, 1038. {Nor have I a 
doubt in my mind how hard it is to overcome those {difficulties'] by style, 
and add this honour to matters [sc] mean.) Promus, 1033. {Ye shall 
sing in alternate verses. Said of couplets made by two rivals alter- 
nately.) Promus, 1059. {The jwet who desires to va7'y uniformity in 
a monstrous way.) Promus, 1044. {0 imitatars, a servile herd.) 
Promus, 1053. {But Lucilius was of high merit as a poet, because he 
intermixed Greek and Latin words. late to begin your studies!) 
Promus, 1029. {What when a letter defrauded of its lawful sound.) 
Promus, 1066. {Therefore I discharge the office of a whetstone, which, 
itself incompetent to cut, can render iron sharp.) 



LIFE OF BACON. 189 

tions with a special drift, bearing on some subject, such 
as the faults of universities or the habits of lawyers. Noth- 
ing is too minute for his notice. He brings together in 
great profusion mere forms, varied turns of expression, 
heads and tails of clauses and paragraphs, transitions, con- 
nections ; he notes down fashions of compliment, of ex- 
cuse or repartee, even morning and evening salutations ; 
he records neat and convenient opening and concluding 
sentences, ways of speaking more adapted than others to 
give a special colour or direction to what the speaker or 
writer has to say — all that hook and-eye work which seems 
so trivial and passes so unnoticed as a matter of course, 
and which yet is often hard to reach, and which makes all 
the difference between tameness and liveliness, between 
clearness and obscurity — all the difference, not merely to 
the ease and naturalness, but often to the logical force of 
speech. These collections it was his way to sift and tran- 
scribe again and again, adding as well as omitting. From 
one of these, belonging to 1594 and the following years, 
i\\Q Promus of Formularies and Elegancies^ Mr. Spedding 
has given curious extracts ; and the whole collection has 
been recently edited by Mrs. Henry Pott. Tims it was 
that he prepared himself for what, as we read it, or as his 
audience heard it, seems the suggestion or recollection of 
the moment. Bacon was always much more careful of the 
value or aptness of a thought than of its appearing new 
and original. Of all great "writers he least minds repeating 
himself, perhaps in the very same words ; so that a simile, 
an illustration, a quotation pleases him, he returns to it — 
he is never tired of it ; it obviously gives him satisfaction 
to introduce it again and again. These collections of odds 
and ends illustrate another point in his literary habits. 
His was a mind keenly sensitive to all analogies and affini- 
ties, impatient of a strict and rigid logical groove, but 
spreading, as it were, tenticles on all sides in quest of 
chance prey, and quickened into a whole system of imagi- 
nation by the electric quiver imparted by a single word, at 
once the key and symbol of the thinking it had led to. 
And so he puts down word or phrase, so enigmatical to us 
who see it by itself, which to him would wake up a whole 
train of ideas, as he remembered the occasion of it — how 
at a certain time and place this word set the whole mov- 
ing, seemed to breathe new life and shed new light, and 



190 LIFE OF BACON". 

has remained the token, meaningless in itself, which re- 
minds him of so much. 

" When we come to read his letters, his speeches, his 
works, we come continually on the results and proofs of this 
early labour/ Some of the most memorable and familiar 
passages of his writings are to be traced from the storehouses 
which he filled in these years of preparation. An example 
of this correspondence between the note-book and the 
composition is to be seen in a paper belonging to this 
period, written apparently to form part of a mask, or as 
he himself calls it, a ' Conference of Pleasure,' and en- 
titled the Praise of Knowledge.''^ 

And in Sonnet 77 he not only reminds himself of his 
unhappy slowness in his work, but of this good note-book 
habit of jotting down his thouglits in order that they may 
take a new acquaintance of the mind. He says : 

•' Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, 
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste ; 
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, 
And of this book this learning may'st thou taste :* 
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, 
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory : 
Tliou by tliy dial's shady stealth may'st know 
Time's thievish progress to eternity. 
Look, what thy memory cannot contain, 
Commit to these waste blanks ; and thou shalt i5nd 
Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain, 
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 
These offices, so oft as tiiou wilt look, 
Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book." 

These note-book methods most vividly appear in the 
Anatomy of Melancholy, where profuse and rich quota- 
tions from ancient lore, as selected particulars, are made 
the basis of conclusions in conformity to the methods of 
the Novum Organum. In vol. ii., p. 351, after referring 
to certain collected instances pro and con it is stated : 
" The sum of which I will briefly epitomise (for I light 

^ And, we add, they may be traced into every phase of the writings 
under review, 

2 Tiie word " taste" and " tasted " Bacon often applied to matters 
literary, as we shall see ; and he says : " Of the New Orgauon I say 
nothing, nor shall I give any taste of it here ; as I purpose by the 
divine favour to compose a complete work on that subject, — being 
the mast important thing of all," (Phil, Works, vol. iv,, p. 421,) 



LIFE OF BACON". 191 

my candle from other torches'), and I enlarge again upon 
occasion, as shall seem best to me, and that after mine 
own method." 

From the foregoing it may be seen, if onr position be 
true, that the so-called Shakespeare writings were not the 
result of mere spontaneity but rather of a rigorous levy 
upon the mental energies. But in his work at p. 163, 
Church of Bacon says : " So he died : the brightest, rich- 
est, largest mind but one, in the age which had seen 
Shakespeare and his fellow^s ; so bright and rich and large 
that there have been found those who identify him with 
the writer of Hamlet and OtheUo. That is idle. Bacon 
could no more have written the plays than Shakespeare 
could have prophesied the triumphs of natural philoso- 
phy." But with these conceded gifts and methods, why? 
From what rendered reasons could he not? From these, 
and not sweeping conclusions, would we have our judg- 
ment corrected if in error. The research of the one will 
be found the research of the other ; central thoughts of the 
one, will be found the central thoughts of the other ; the 
vocabulary and set forms of expression of the one, will be 
found the vocabulary and set forms of expression of the 
other ; and so to the end, as we shall see. 

While a reformer, and in a sense not yet made mani- 
fest. Bacon was still ever conservative, and especially as 
to all civil affairs, and v/hich he thought ought to be like 
the advance of nature scarcely discernible in its motion 
and visible only in its issues. " Let a living spring flow 
into the stagnant waters'^ are his words. And hence it 
may be seen why he did not seek in the plays to disturb 
the populace with political issues. These and the subject 
of inspired divinity were to Bacon's mind the last subjects 
to be in any way thus popularly handled ; and hence — say- 
ing nothing as to a subtle— in a popular sense, they are 

' This is the Baconian word for this place, and observe its use 
throughout. Note the word in his mentioned letter to King James, 
page 95, and see p. 178. And in Measure for Measure, Act i., 
sc. 1, p. 20, we have : 

" Heaven doth with us, as we witli torches do ; 
Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not." 



192 LIFE OF BACON. 

notably absent from this branch of his work.^ And this 
is all, we think, that need be here said concerning the 
politics or the religion of the plays. lie, on the other 
hand, as to arts, says there is " a great diiference between 
arts and civil affairs ; arts and sciences should be like 
mines resounding on all sides with new works, and further 
progress : but it is not good to try experiments in states 
except the necessity be urgent and the utility evident ; 
and well to beware that it is the reformation that draweth 
on the change, and not the desire of change that pre- 
tendeth the reformation." (Works, vol. i., p. 115.) 

The plays are works of art, and embrace much more, we 
think, than has yet been seen in them. Their external 
was evidently designed to entertain the people, to show 
the outcome of bad motives, and to furnish forth means 
for their author while in the performance of work which 
he regarded of more vital importance. 

As a judge, and even during his troubles as chancellor, 
it has not been pretended that any decree made by him 
was unjust, even though certain would-be bribers may 
have been tricked by his serpent and dove theories.^ 

While unrelentingly firm to the ends which he regarded as 
worthy, he still in their attainment indulged in the suavity 
and ceremoniousness of his day.^ Here, as in the works of 
nature, he by indirection found direction out. This was 
art. This was the shepherd's crook. This was following 
the line of least resistance. And this was Bacon. 

His political methods may be best seen in the men- 
tioned A. D. B. mask upon courts of princes, and 
where he displaj^s an accurate judgment as to the foibles 
of men. That he was gifted in satire and humor may be 
seen in his Apophthegms, and which show a taste for all 
those elements wrought into the plays. He of them says : 
" They are ' mucrones verborum,' pointed speeches. Cicero 
prettily calleth them ' salinas,' salt pits, that you may 

^ In Ills essay on " Honour and Reputation" he says : "If a man 
so temper his actions, as in some one of them he doth content every 
faction or combination of people, the music will be the fuller." 

2 In All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv., sc. 2, p. 351, it is said : 

" I think't no sin 
To cousin him, that would unjustly win." 

I Promus, 1334. (The end is better than [the course, meansl to 
the end.) 



LIFE OF BACON". 193 

extract salt out of, and sprinkle it where you will. They 
serve to be interlaced in continued speech. They serve 
to be recited upon occasion of themselves. They serve, 
if you take out the kernel of them and make them your 
own. I have, for my recreation, in my sickness, fanned 
the old, not omitting any, because they are vulgar (for 
many vulgar ones are excellent good), nor for the mean- 
ness of the person, but because they are dull and flat ; and 
added manv new, that otherwise would have died." 
(Works, vol. i., p. 107.) 

To those who may think that Lord Bacon could not 
have been author of Roxana, Moll Flanders, and the 
plays, by reason of alluded-to elements, let them but read 
the Apophthegms. We have not here an unsunned clod, 
but an all-sided man,' with gifts as wide as ever fell within 
the reaches of mortality. 

Until Lord Bacou had attained the age of forty-seven 
years, when by King James's appointment he became 
solicitor-general, his time had been almost wholly devoted 
to study and to literary work. In 1573, at the early age 
of twelve, he and his two years elder brother, Anthony, 
were admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, one of Eng- 
land's two great national seats of learning.^ Even at 
these years we find him meditating not merely upon ttie 
laws of sound, but even upon those of the imagination, 
concerniag which he later expended so much thought, 
and in the fringes or borders of which he reached the 

^ In the Taming of the Shrew, Act 1., sc. 1, p. 415, we have : 

" I am in all affected as vourself, 
Glad that you thus continue your resolve, 
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. 
Only, good master, while we do admire 
This virtue, and this moral discipline. 
Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray ; 
Or so devote to Aristotle's ethics. 
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd. 
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have, 
And practise rhetoric in your common talk : 
Music and poesy use to quicken you : 
The mathematics, and the metaphysics. 
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you : 
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en : — 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 

* Lord Bacon was the youngest of eight children— six by a former 
marriage. (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 2.) 

7 



194 LIFE OF BACOK. 

conclusion that imagination may become a canse, and even 
a cure of disease ; and due not to marvel, but to material 
changes wrought by it in the bodily humors. See in 
this connection the ending of ch. 1, Book 4, of the Do 
Augmentis. And in ch. 1 of Book 5, concerning the 
imagination, he says : 

" Logic discourses of the Understanding and Reason ; 
Ethics of the Will, Appetite, and Affections : the one 
produces determinations, the other actions. It is true 
indeed that the imagination performs the office of an 
agent or messenger or proctor in both provinces, both the 
judicial and the ministerial. For sense sends all kinds of 
images over to imagination for reason to judge of ; and 
reason again, when it has made its judgment and selection, 
sends them over to imagination before the decree be put 
in execution. For voluntary motion is ever preceded and 
incited by imagination ; so that imagination is as a com- 
mon instrument to both, — both reason and will ; saving that 
this Janus of imagination has two different faces ; for the 
face towards reason has the print of truth, and the face 
towards action has the print of goodness ; which neverthe- 
less are faces, — quales decet esse sororum. [Such as sisters' 
faces should be.] Neither is the imagination simply and 
only a messenger ; but it is either invested with or usurps 
no small authority in itself, besides the simple duty of the 
messenger. For it was well said by Aristotle, ' That the 
mind has over the body that commandment which the 
lord has over a bondman ; but that reason has over the 
imagination that commandment which a magistrate has 
over a free citizen,' who may come also to rule in his turn. 
For we see that in matters of faith and religion our imag- 
ination raises itself above our reason ; not that divine 
illumination resides in the imagination ; its seat being 
rather in the very citadel of the mind and understanding ; 
but that the divine grace uses the motions of the imagina- 
tion as an instrument of illumination, just as it uses the 
motions of the will as an instrument of virtue ; which is 
the reason why religion ever sought access to the mind by 
similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams." 

AVhile in the university it was that his dislike of and 
his disbelief in the then extant philosophy arose, and 
particularly as taught by its great disciple, Aristotle, and 
due chiefly to its unfruitful methods. " In the univer- 



LIFE OF BACON". 195 

sities/ he says, " they learn nothing but to believe : first 
that others know that which they know not ; and after 
themselves know that which they know not. They are 
like becalmed ships ; they never move but by the winds of 
other men's truth and have no oars of their own to steer 
withal." 

When he left Cambridge, which was at the end of his 
third year, it was with the conviction that the institutions 
of learning were stagnant as to all true advancement in 
knowledge, and he seems ever after to have thought him- 
self called as by some irresistible impulse to its renova- 
tion, or reformation ; and to have been within the bounds 
of duty only when in some way at work in the line of this 
seemingly destined mission — the good of men. (See Sonnets 
100 and 101.) As to this, he in our mentioned Head-light 
says : " This whether it be curiosity, or vainglory, or 
nature, or, if you take it favorably, philanthropia, is so 
fixed in my mind, as it cannot be removed." 

All must, we think, unite in saying that his labors ever 
tended in the direction indicated, whatever conclusions 
may be reached as to his private life. For this reason we 
feel to investigate with care and to suspend still our judg- 
ment. We have here a life and methods far out of the 
common road ; envy can do much, and, as stated in the 
play of The Tempest, " misery acquaints us with strange 
bedfellows." 

Upon leaving the university, at the age of sixteen, he 
spent some time abroad, and particularly in France, where 
diplomacy, cipher writing, and statistics, as well as philoso- 
phy, occupied his thoughts. While in France, he was 
somewhat under the care of Elizabeth's faithful minister 
at the French court, Sir Amias Paulett, and acquired, it 
is said, durable friendships with grave statesmen and men 
of letters. While thus absent he received news of his 
father's somewhat sudden death, occurring February 20, 
1579, whereupon he immediately returned to England. 
By this event a distinguished influence was shorn away, 
as well as an intended financial provision ; and Bacon's 
future prospects became at once overshadowed, and not 
merely from want of means, against which for years he 
was now compelled to struggle, but by reason, as well, of 
jealousy or lack of appreciation on the part of his relatives 
— the Cecils— who, heading the party in power, had the 



196 LIFE OF BACON. 

ear of the queen. His relatives having been schooled not 
merely in the law, but in the then opening science of Eng- 
lish statesmanship, these flelds seemed to lie most open to 
him, though neither but for lack of means would have 
been chosen, as he himself tells us. Why he did not now 
devote himself exclusively to philosophy and letters may 
be found vividly pictured in The Anatomy of Melancholy, 
under the title " Love of Learning and Overmuch Study. 
AVith a Digression of the Misery of Scholars, and Why the 
Muses are Melancholy," vol. i., p. 185. 

In 1580, the year following his father's death, he by 
letter, both to his Uncle and Aunt Burgh ley, sought some 
place or preferment, by asking of them recommendations 
to the queen. This failing to bring the desired results, to 
the law he reluctantly turned his attention, and was this 
year admitted to Gray's Inn, of which society his father 
had for many years been a prominent member, and of 
whose society of ancients he had himself been a member 
since the age of sixteen. In the law, as elsewhere, he be- 
came proficient, by mastering each step in the advance. 
And though it was to him ever but an accessory, and not 
his principal study, he still became as proficient, perhaps, 
not merely in its precepts, precedents, and authorities, 
but in its philosophy, as any man of his day, his great 
rival Coke not excepted. He indeed explored deeply the 
principles of universal justice and looked at his profession 
in the line of his philosophy. He says : " I hold every 
man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, ^ as men 
do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so 
ought they to endeavour themselves by way of amends, to 
be a help and ornament." At the festivities of Gray's 
Inn he often assisted, and was the author of its most brill- 
iant masks. He took much interest in its spacious gar- 
dens. Observe the emphasis upon the garden in the plays, 
in Addison, and everywhere in this literature. In his 
Essay on Gardens he says : " God Almighty first planted 
a garden ; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleas- 
ures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; 
without which buildings and palaces are but gross handi- 
work ; and a man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to 

' This form of expression, " from the which," and " to the which," 
may be found quite frequent in the plays. See our quotation from 
Othello, p. 197. 



LIFE OF BACON-. 197 

civility and elegancy, men come to build stately, sooner 
than to garden finely ; as if gardening were the greater 
perfection." From one of his alluded-to masks we, as to 
a poetic use of the word garden, quote as follows : 

'' The gardens of love wherein he now playeth himself, 
are fresh to-day and fading to morrow, as the sun com- 
forts them or is turned from them. But the gardens of 
the Muses keep the privilege of the golden age ; they ever 
flourish and are in league with time. The monuments of 
wit survive the monuments of powder : the verses of a poet 
endure without a syllable lost, while states and empires 
pass many periods. Let him not think he shall descend, 
for he is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted upon the 
ridge of a wave ; but that hilP of the Muses is above 
tempests, always clear and calm ; a hill of the goodliest 
discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all 
the errors and wanderings of the present and former 
times. Yea, in some cliff it leadeth the eye beyond the 
horizon of time, and giveth no obscure divinations of 
times to come. So that if he will indeed lead vitain 
vitalein, a life that unites safety and dignity, pleasure and 
merit ; if he will win admiration without envy ; if he 
will be in the feast and not in the throng, in the light and 
not in the heat ; let him embrace the life of study and 
contemplation." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 379.) 

Again : as to the garden, we in Othello, Act i., sc. 3, 
p. 440, have : 

" lago. Virtue ? a fig ! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus. 
Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners : so 
that, if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce ; set hyssop, and weed 
up thyme ; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with 
many ; either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with in- 
dustry ; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our 
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to 
poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures 
would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions : But we have 
reason, to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted 
lusts ; whereof I take this, that you call— love, to be a sect, or 
scion. 

" Rod. It cannot be. 

" lago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the 
will. Come be a man : drown thyself ? drown cats and blind 
puppies." 

' Let the emphasis placed upon the " hill " in these writings be 
noted. 



198 LIFE OF BACON". 

At Gray's Inn he lived absorbed in work, much as a 
reduse in his chambers. Here it was that, in 1583, his 
first essay on the instauration of philosophy was composed, 
and to which, as stated, he gave the title Temjjoris Partus 
Maxwius. On June 27th of the previous year he was 
admitted utter barrister, and in this habit is said occasion- 
ally to have been seen abroad in the city. This did not 
confer the right to practise, however, and he was twenty- 
six years of age before he became a bencher — that is, 
before he was called within bars, upon which event he, in 
a letter to his Uncle Burghley, among other things, says : 
*' I find in my simple observation, that they which live as 
it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, 
how moderately and modestly soever they behave them- 
selves, yet laborant invidia ; 1 find also that such persons 
as are of nature bashful (as myself am), whereby they want 
that plausible familiarity which others have, are often 
mistaken for proud. But once I know well, and I most 
humbly beseech your lordship to believe that arrogancy 
and overweaning is so far from my nature, as if I think 
well of myself in any thing it is in this, that I am free 
from that vice." (Works, vol. i., p. 23 ) At the age of 
twenty-eight he was by the Society of Gray's Inn chosen 
lent reader, and by the 42d of Elizabeth double reader and 
in his thirtieth year he was considered one of the queen's 
counsel learned extraordinary in the law, but which, being 
held without warrant or patent, yielded him no revenue. 

He, as a member of the House of Commons, was in the 
Parliament which met in November, 1584, while the 
nation was in its white heat concerning the maintenance 
of the Protestant or Keformed faith as against Spain and 
the influences of Rome. A bull of excommunication had 
been issued against Elizabeth by the pope as early as 1569. 
Bacon was also in the Parliament which met in October, 
1586, and which passed judgment upon Mary Queen of 
Scots, and was one of the committee to whom the matter 
was referred. See Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 61-67. 

During this year he began to indulge his pen in care- 
fully prepared papers touching church affairs, and one 
concerning a policy to keep the Catholic interest in check 
was prepared by him in the previous year.' This was 

^ Sacli papers at this time circulated from hand to hand, and were 



LIFE OF BACON". 199 

followed by others concerning the Church of England, 
and with the view of harmonizing its discordant elements, 
consisting, as in the days of Defoe, of the Church party, 
the Nonconformists, and the Catholics. In 1589 he pre- 
pared an important paper of this kind, when the High 
Church party and the Nonconformists, now beginning to 
be called Puritans, were in much heat. Though of Puri- 
tan stock, still no merely sectarian mould could compass 
him. 

The first reformers had left room for such variety of 
opinion as time was likely to breed. But their success- 
ors inherited not tlieir policy and chose not to tolerate 
further reform, and so in the perilous times of 1584 a 
struggle arose between the bishops and the Nonconform- 
ists, wherein Elizabeth, through fear or otherwise, decided 
against the Puritan element. Commissioners appointed 
by the crown chose now to silence and remove such min- 
isters as they approved not, and thus a check was put 
upon the free interpretation of the Word. Concerning 
this step by Elizabeth, Mr. Spedding says: "I doubt 
whether there has been a more important crisis in English 
history, or whether the queen ever made a greater mistake 
than in choosing this moment to stop the tide and put 
herself in direct opposition to this party. She succeeded 
indeed ; she carried her point and stood her ground dur- 
ing her own life ; but it was at the expanse of creating a 
division among the Protestant party, which ended in the 
overthrow of the monarchy itself for a time, and in making 
the existence of a national English Church, in any true 
sense of the word national, an impossibility to this day. 
The Church of England emerged from the storm with the 
name and legal rights and temporal attractions, but with- 
out the moral and spiritual authority of a national church, 
to be thenceforward only one of many Protestant sects into 
which the English people are divided." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. i., p. 39.) 

Bacon's mother longed to see this step averted, and 
sought a personal interview with the crown adviser, 
Burghley, for the purpose. See her able letter to him 
upon the subject and the full chapter in which it occurs. 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 40-42.) 

rarely published. They were what would now be called magazine 
articles. 



200 LIFE OF BACON-. 

The court of Elizabeth was divided into two parties, 
the Cecils — Lord Burghley and his son Eobert — being at 
the head of the one party, and party in power ; and the 
Earl of Leicester and later the Earl of Essex of the other. 
Bacon through friendship became allied to Essex, who 
upon Leicester's death, in 1588, became chief favorite of 
the queen. Though Essex at first seemed generous and 
noble, he still possessed elements that grew increasingly 
discordant. In 1591 we find Bacon acting as his confiden- 
tial adviser, their acquaintance beginning, it is said, in 
the early part of this year. Upon the return of Bacon's 
brother Anthony from abroad, the following year, they 
both exerted themselves in his interest. Concerning their 
employment Mr. Spedding says : " In both these countries 
Essex had correspondents, in his intercourse with whom 
Anthony Bacon appears to have served him in a capacity 
very like that of a modern under- secretary of state ; re- 
ceiving all letters, which were mostly in cipher, in the 
first instance ; forwarding them generally through his 
brother Francis's hands to the earl, deciphered and accom- 
panied with their joint suggestions ; and finally, accord- 
ing to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and 
despatching the answers." 

Essex had been in France during the latter half of 1591 
as commander of the forces sent to assist Henry the 
Fourth of France, and the acquaintance, it is said, cannot 
be dated later than the preceding July. Bacon was still 
at Gray's Inn. 

Though there was at court at this period much pedantry 
and a kind of grave learning, still that of the lighter sort 
was looked upon by the Burghley party with coldness, 
while philosophy, concerning which Bacon was now re- 
minding himself of his unhappy slowness, was viewed 
with positive suspicion. At about this juncture, and in 
1592, it was that Bacon, desirous of escape from his pro- 
fession, by procuring some appointment at court that 
should yield him support and at the same time leisure for 
literary work, that his noted letter to Lord Burghley, set 
out in our introduction to this work, was written. Fol- 
lowing this letter he received the right to the reversion of 
the registership of the Star Chamber. But as this did 
not fall into possession for some twenty years, it was of 
no immediate value to him. We think this matter is 



LIFE OF BACOX. 201 

alluded to in The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 
208. 

As one of the knights from Middlesex, he sat in the 
Parliament which met February 19th, 1592, and chiefly for 
consultation and preparations against further Spanish 
designs upon England. Early in the session, and on 
March 7th, he made a speech which, we think, had much 
influence in curbing his freedom of action upon political 
issues. It displeased the queen, and he was made very 
uncomfortable by reason of it. Though he favored the 
subsidies for the present necessities of the government, he 
opposed the shortness of the time in which they were to 
be raised. He likewise raised a question of privilege, 
insisting that the Lords had no rights in the deliberations 
of the Commons on questions of supply, as such questions 
were exclusively with them ; and Burghley and the queen 
were compelled" to shift the position which they had taken 
in the matter. (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 208-42.) 

He was at once charged with seeking popularity, and 
for a time he was excluded from court, and was even for- 
bidden to enter the queen's presence. To the Cecils, 
through whom the queen's displeasure was communicated 
to him, he, among other things, though not apologizing, 
said " he spoke in discharge of his conscience and duty to 
God, to the queen, and to his country." Afterwards in a 
letter upon the subject to the lord keeper, Sir John Puck- 
ering, he says : 

" My Lord : It is a great grief unto me, joined with 
marvel, that her majesty should retain a hard conceit of 
my speeches in Parliament. It might please her sacred 
majesty to think what my end should be in those speeches, 
if it were not duty, and duty alone. I am not so simple 
but I know the common beaten way to please. And 
whereas popularity hath been objected, I muse what care 
I should take to please many, that take a course of life to 
deal with few. On the other side, her majesty's grace 
and j^articular favour towards me hath been such, as I 
esteem no worldly thing above the comfort to enjoy it, 
except it be the conscience to deserve it. But, if the not 
seconding of some particular person's opinion shall be 
presumption, and to differ upon the manner shall be to 
impeach the end, it shall teach me devotion not to exceed 
wishes, and those in silence. Yet notwithstanding (to 



202 LIFE OF BACOi^. 

speak vainly as in grief), it may be her majesty hath dis- 
couraged as good a heart as ever looked towards her ser- 
vice, and as void of self-love. And so, in more grief than 
I can well express, and much more than I can well dis- 
semble, I leave your lordship, being as ever, your lord- 
ship's entirely devoted, etc." (Works, vol. iii., p. 
91.) 

Could he now but have realized, as fully as he was 
nltimately compelled to do, the difficulties of uniting in 
one and the same person the incongruous character of the 
politic courtier with that of the sincere philosopher, it 
had been better. But his refined tastes unfitted him for 
the common walks of life, to say nothing as to his great 
felt mission ; and his means were such as poorly to yield 
him leisure. 

In a still earlier speech, and on February 25th, he pre- 
sented the ever-important question to him touching im- 
provement of the laws, and which after his method was to 
be in their very roots and foundations. He continued 
ever interested in this subject, and late in life prepared a 
plan for the renovation and digest of the whole body of 
English law, and particularly as to that branch which 
is penal in its nature. He likewise composed a tract 
upon universal justice. The next year, 1593, the office of 
attorney- general fell vacant, and Bacon earnestly sought 
the place. His insolent and galsome rival. Sir Edward 
Coke, was likewise an aspirant. Essex, of whom Bacon 
was for a time the ballast and intellectual right arm, 
became this year a member of the Privy Council, and now 
in his pompous and showy way undertook to forward 
Bacon's claims with the queen. To the Cecils Bacon also 
applied himself. After much shifting. Coke in April, 
1594, received the appointment. Bacon felt not only 
deeply wounded, but disgraced. Coke's promotion, 
however, left vacant the solicitor's place, and Bacon's 
debts pressing now somewhat heavily, he made trial for 
it. Again Essex pretended assistance, but after a tedious 
and protracted effort Mr. Sargent Fleming received the 
appointment. November 5th, 1595, and Bacon, among other 
things, writes to Essex : " For means, I value that most ; 
and the rather because I am purposed not to follow the 
practice of the law (if her Majesty command me in any 
particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service) : and 



LIFE OF BACON. 203 

my reason is only, because it drinketh too much time/ 
which I have dedicated to better purposes." 

Though not idle, still this great delay, anxiety, and 
disappointment thiew Bacon into much mortification and 
gloom. He began to lose confidence in Essex's ability 
either as a leader or to in any way do him good. For 
once he lost his patience, and seemed disgusted with all 
concerned. Did he begin to indulge a suspicion that 
Essex thought his time, talent, and friendship more im- 
portant to him — Essex — than if encumbered by public em- 
ployment? He in a letter to Essex, in 1593, concerning 
his services and while trying for the attornej^'s place, says : 

'• My Lord : I did almost conjecture, by your silence 
and countenance, a distaste in the course I imparted to 
your lordship touching mine own fortune ; the care where- 
of in your lordship as it is no news to me, so, nevertheless, 
the main effects and demonstrations past are so far from 
dulling in me the sense of any new, as, contrariwise, every 
new refresheth the memory of many past. And for the 
free and loving advice your lordship hath given me, I can- 
not correspond to the same with greater duty, than by 
assuring your lordship, that I will not dispose of myself 
without your allowance, not only because it is the best 
wisdom in any man in his own matters, to rest in the 
wisdom of a friend, (for who can by often looking in a 
glass discern and judge so well of his own favour as an- 
other with whom he converseth ?) but also because my 
affection to your lordship hath made mine own content- 
ment inseparable from your satisfaction. But notwith- 
standing, 1 know it will be pleasing to your good lordship 
that I use my liberty of replying ; and I do almost assure 
myself, that your lordship will rest persuaded by the answer 
of those reasons which your lordship vouchsafed to open. 
They were two, the one that I should include. . . ." 

April, 1593, The rest of the letter is wanting. (Works, 
vol. iii., p. 200.) 

That he became suspicious in these matters may be 
seen by his letter to his friend Faulk Grevil the follow- 
ing year. He says : 

* In King Richard 11. , Act v., so. 2, p. 125, we have : 

" Is not my teeming date drunk up with time ?" 
Note throughout these wiitings, and particularly in the plays, the 
emphasis placed upon the subject of time. 



204 LIFE OF BACON. 

*' Sir : I understand of yonr pains to have visited me, 
for which I thank yon. My matter is an endless question. 
I assure you I had said, ' requiesce anima mea ;' but now 
I am otherwise put to my psalter ' nolite confidere,' I dare 
go no farther. Her majesty had by set speech more than 
once assured me of her intention to call me to her ser- 
vice ; which I could not understand but of the place I had 
been named to. And now whether ' invidus homo hoc 
fecit/ or whether my matter must be an appendix to my 
Lord of Essex's suit, or whether her majesty, pretending 
to prove my ability, meaneth but to take advantage of 
some errors, which like enough, at one time or other T 
may commit, or what it is, but her majesty is not ready to 
dispatch it. And what though the master of the rolls 
and my Lord of Essex, and yourself and others think my 
case without doubt, yet, in the mean time I have a hard 
condition to stand so, that whatsoever service I do to her 
majesty, it shall be thought to be but ^ servitium vis- 
catum,' lime-twigs and fetches to place myself ; and so 
I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench 
all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature ; 
which will, I fear, much hurt her majesty's service in the 
end. I have been like a piece of stuS bespoke in the 
shop : and if her majesty will not take me, it may be the 
selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as 
I told you, like a child following a bird, which, when he 
is nearest, flieth away and lighteth a little before, and 
then the child after it again, and so in infinitum, I am 
weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends, of whom, 
nevertheless, I hope in one course or other gratefully to 
deserve. And so, not forgetting your business I leave to 
trouble you with this idle letter, being but ' justa et mod- 
erata querimonia. ' For, indeed, I do confess ' primus 
amor,' will not easily be cast off. And thus again I com- 
mend me to you." (Works, vol. iii., p. 52.) 

This letter reminds us of Sonnet 143, and where he says 
to the queen : 

" Lo ! as a careful housewife runs to catch 
One of her feather'd creatures broke awaj ; 
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch 
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay ; 
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, 
Cries to catch her, whose busy care is bent 
To follow that which flies before her face, 



LIFE OF BACON". 205 

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent ; — 
So ruun'st thou after that which flies from thee, 
Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind ; 
But, if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, 
And phi}" the mother's part ; kiss me, be kind : 
So will I pray that thou may'st have thy Will, 
If thou turn back and my loud crying still. ' ' 

The word " Will," in this sounet distinguished by a capi- 
tal, refers, as we shall claim, to the royal will, the will of the 
queen. See, please. Bacon's letter to his brother Anthony, 
June 25th, 1594 (Works, vol. iii. , p. 205), in connection with 
Sonnets 135 and 136. As to these sonnets Hudson says : 
** In this sonnet and the next we print the Wills just as 
they stand in the originals. Of course this is a play on 
the poet's name William." 

As between this interpretation and ours the reader 
must judge. As the mentioned sonnets have caused com- 
ment, we give them place here, that they may be read in 
the light of the interpretation we have given them. They 
are as follows : 

" Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will, 
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus ; 
More than enough am I that vex thee still, ^ 
To thy sweet will making addition thus. 
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, 
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine ? 
Shall will in others seem right gracious. 
And in my will no fair acceptance shine ? 
The sea, all water, yet recei'/es rain still, 
And in abundance addeth to his store ; 
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will 
One will of mine, to make thy large Will more. 
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill ; 
Think all but one, and me in that one Will." 

" If thy soul check thee that I come so near. 
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, 
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there ; 
Thus far, for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. 
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love, 
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. 
In things of great receipt^ with ease we prove ; 
Among a number one is reckon 'd none. 

' Note in this sonnet the expression " I that vex thee still," and 
in the next sonnet, " If thy soul check thee that I come so near." 
2 The expression " In things of great receipt" is Baconian. 



206 LIFE OF BACON. 

Then, in the number let me pass untold, 
Though in thy stores' account I one must be ; 
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold 
That nothing, me, a something sweet to thee : 
Make but my name thy love, and love that still, 
And then thou lov'st me, — for my name is Will." * 

Bacon had in 1593, as we have seen, been forbidden to 
come within the queen's presence, and in a letter dated. 
October 14th, 1595, to the Lord Keeper Puckering he says 
of the queen : '' Or whether she look towards me or no, 
I remain the same, not altered in my intention." (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. i., p. 369.) 

In Essex's interest, and for the entertainment of the 
queen, Bacon in 1592 devised a brilliant court mask, in 
which his articles entitled " Mr. Bacon in Praise of Knowl- 
edge" and " Mr. Bacon in Praise of His Sovereign" are 
thought to have formed speeches. They came from the 
hands of Ilarley to Stephens, and were first published in 
1734, after the death of both Harley and Defoe. (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. i., pp. 119-134.) And see same volume, pp. 
325-343 and pp. 374-392, the good literature of two like 
masks devised by Bacon and performed before the queen, 
one in 1594 and the other in 1595. Concerning the last 
Mr. Spedding says : " Thus ended one of the most elo- 
quent Christmas entertainments, probably, that was ever 
presented to an audience of statesmen and courtiers." 
Courses were here presented which Bacon would gladly 
have had the queen pursue. Note the speeches of the six 
counsellors and the Prince of Purpoole's answers and con- 
clusions upon those speeches. 

Bacon also composed important letters, which Essex 
subscribed and used as his own. (See Bacon's Letters, vol. 
ii., pp. 4-26.) 

As a kind of compensation for these services, or for his 

' Church in his life of Bacon, p. 57, says : " He was a compound 
of the most adventurous and most diversified ambition, with a placid 
and patient temper, such as we commonly associate with moderate 
desires and the love of retirement and an easy life. To imagine and 
dare anything, and never to let go the object of his pursuit, is one 
side of him ; on the other he is obsequiously desirous to please and 
fearful of giving offence, the humblest and most grateful and also 
the most importunate of suitors, ready to bide his time with an even 
cheerfulness of spirit, which yet it was not safe to provoke by ill 
offices and the wish to thwart him." 



LIFE OF BACON^. 207 

loss of time and money while trying for the mentioned 
positions, property valued at £1800 was conferred upon 
him by Essex. Did the queen, unknown to Bacon at this 
time, have to do with this? and had she been teaching 
him a lesson more ruinous to his finances than she had 
supposed ? He at least in Sonnet 145 says : 

" Those lips that Love's own hand did make, 
Breath'd forth the sound that said, ' I hate,' 
To me, that languish 'd for her sake ; 
But when she saw my woeful state. 
Straight in her heart did mercy come, 
Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet 
Was us'd in giving gentle doom ; 
And taught it thus anew to greet : 
* I hate,' she alter'd with an end, 
That follow 'd it as gentle day 
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend, 
From heaven to hell is flown away : 
' I hate,' from hate aw^ay she threw. 
And sav'd my life, saying, — ' not you.' " 

Bacon now demonstrated that he had merit to those 
who had of late berated him, by putting forth early in 
1597, when thirty-six years of age, his first acknowledged 
publication. This he dedicated to his brother Anthony. 
It consisted of a small 12mo volume containing his first 
ten essays, the Meditationes Sacrce and the Colours of 
Good and Evil. Another edition of them was issued the 
following year, a third in 1612, and a fourth in 1625, the 
year prior to his death. New essays were added in subse- 
quent editions, and those first issued were somewhat 
amended. By some of his friends they were immediately 
translated into French, Latin, and Italian. 

In 1596 he had completed, though not published until 
after his death, his valuable paper in two parts upon the 
elements and uses of the common law, and which '' as a 
sheaf and cluster of fruit" he dedicated to the queen. 
At the end of this year Essex, as we have seen, was flushed 
with his military reputation won at Cadiz, and Bacon 
grew apprehensive of his now courses toward the queen. 
He says he had " good cause to think that the earl's for- 
tunes comprehended his own." And so on October 4:th, 
1576, he wrote him a long and friendly, yet very earnest 
letter, dissuading him from courting military popularity, 
he, Bacon, well knowing that such a reputation, now 



;^08 LIFE OF BACON. 

rapidly rising with the people towards Essex, would as- 
suredly and permanently alienate the queen. These 
courses were disturbing the waters. Through Essex and 
his court masks Bacon was preparing the queen and 
others for the advent of his philosophy. The letter seems 
a kind of warning to Essex, that he, 'Bacon, must at least 
look out for himself if the earl persisted in these danger- 
ous courses. 

We here give place to a considerable portion of the let- 
ter, though it should be read in full. 

" My Singular Good Lord : I will no longer dissever 
part of that which I meant to have said to your lordship 
at Barnhelmes, from the exordium, which I then made. 
Whereunto I will only add this ; that I humbly desire 
your lordship before you give access to my poor advice, to 
look about, even jealously a little, if you will, and to 
consider ; First, whether I have not reason to think that 
your fortune comprehendeth mine : Next, whether I shift 
my counsel and do not 'constare mihi ;' for I am per- 
suaded there are some would give you the same counsel 
now, which I shall, but that they should derogate from 
that which they have said heretofore : Thirdly, whether 
you have taken hurt at any time by my careful and de- 
voted counsel. For although I remember well your lord- 
ship once told me that you having submitted upon my 
well-meant motion at Nonsuch (the place where you re- 
newed a treaty with her majesty of obsequious kindness^), 
she had taken advantage of it ; }et I suppose you do since 
believe that it did much attemper a cold and malignant 
humour then growing upon her majesty toward your lord- 
ship, and hath done you good in consequence. And for 
being against it, now lately, that you should not estrange 
yourself, though I give place to none in true gratulation, 
yet neither do I repent me of safe counsel ; neither do I 
judge of the whole play by the first act.' But whether 
I counsel you the best, or for the best, duty bindeth me to 
offer to you my wishes. I said to your lordship last time ; 
' Martha, Martha, attendis ad plurima, unum sufficit.' 
Win the queen ; if this be not the beginning, of any 

' As to Bacon's sonnet for this occasion, see p. 153. 
^ Note the many allusions to the stage even in Bacon's attributed 
writinsrs. 



LIFE or BACOK. 209 

other course I see no end. And I will not now speak of 
favour or affection, but of other correspondence and 
agreeableness, which whensoever ib shall be conjoined with 
the other of affection, I durst wager my life (let them 
make what prosopopa3us they will of her majesty's nature) 
that in you she will come to the question of ' quid fiet 
homini, quem rex vult honorare ? ' But how is it now ? 
A man of a nature not to be ruled, that hath the advan- 
tage of my affection and knoweth it, of an estate not 
grounded to his greatness, of a popular reputation, of a 
military dependence : I demand whether there can be a 
more dangerous image than this represented to any mon- 
arch living, much more to a lady, and of her majesty's appre- 
hension ? And is it not more evident than demonstration 
itself, that whilst this impression continueth in her maj- 
esty's breast, you can find no other condition than inven- 
tions to keep your estate bare and low ; crossing and dis- 
gracing your actions, extenuating and blasting of your 
merit, carping with contempt at your nature and fashions ; 
breeding, nourishing, and fortifying such instruments as 
are most factious against you, repulses and scorns of your 
friends and dependents that are true and steadfast, win- 
ning and inveigling away from you such as are flexible 
and wavering, thrusting you into odious employments and 
offices to supplant your reputation, abusing you, and feed- 
ing you with dalliances^ and demonstrations, to divert you 
from descending into the serious consideration of your 
own case ; yea, and percase^ venturing you in perilous and 
desperate enterprises." (Works, vol. iii., p. 59.) 

As the letter was distasteful to the earl, some coolness 
ensued. But in the following year Bacon, having sought 
in marriage the hand of the rich widow, Lady Hatton, 

' As to this word " dalliance," oft used in tlie plays, we from The 
Tempest, Act iv., so. 1, p. 80, quote as follows : 

" Pro. Look, thou be true : do not give dalliance 
Too much the rein ; the strongest oaths are straw 
To the tire i' the blood : Be more abstemious. 
Or else, good nio^ht your vow !" 

^ The words " percase" and " put case" — that is, to put or state 
a case, are found in The Anatomy of Melancholy, in the A. D. B. 
Mask, and in many places in the Defoe literature. Bacon says : 
" An example will make my meaning attained, and yet percase 
make it thought that they attain it not." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., 
p. 236.) 



210 LIFE OF BACON-. 

Essex again proffered aid. The matter ended by her 
becoming the wife of his great rival, Sir Edward Coke. 

The year 1598 found Bacon's financial matter much 
disordered, and on one occasion, while engaged in impor- 
tant state matters, he was arrested for debt, whereupon he 
wrote thus to the lord keeper : 

*' It May Please Your Lordship, — I am to make hum- 
ble c(t)mplaint to your lordship of some hard dealing offered 
me by one Sympson, a goldsmith, a man noted much, as 
I have heard, for extremities and stoutness upon his 
purse ; but yet I could scarcely have imagined he would 
have dealt either so dishonestly towards me, or so con- 
temptuously towards her majesty's service. For this Lom- 
bard (pardon me, I most humbly pray your lordship, if, 
being admonished by the street he dwells in, I give him 
that name) having me in bond for 300 pounds principle, 
and I having the last term confessed the action, and by 
his full and direct consent respited the satisfaction till 
the beginning of this term to come, without ever giving 
me warning, either by letter or message, served an execu- 
tion upon me, having trained me at such time as I came 
from the Tower, where Mr. Waad can witness, we attended 
a service of no mean importance ; neither would he so 
much as vouchsafe to come and speak with me to take 
any order in it, though I sent for him divers times, and 
his house was just by ; handling it as upon a despite,* 
being a man I never provoked with a cross word, no, nor 
with any delays. He would have urged it to have had me 
in prison ; which he had done, had not Sheriff More, to 
whom I sent, gently recommended me to a handsome 
house in Coleman Street, where I am. Now because he 
will not treat with me, I am enforced humbly to desire 
your lordship to send for him according to your place, to 
bring him to some reason ; and this forthwith, because 
I continue here to my further discredit and inconvenience, 
and the trouble of the gentleman with whom I am. I 
have a hundred pounds lying by me, which he may have, 
and the rest upon some reasonable time and security, or, 
jf need be, the whole ; but with my more trouble. As for 

^ In Henry the Fifth, Act iii., sc. 5, we have : 

'* Is not this climate foggy, raw, and dull ? 
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale. 
Killing their fruit with frowns ?" 



LIFE OF BACON". 211 

the contempt he hath offered, in regard her majesty's ser- 
vice to my understanding, carrieth a privilege eundo et 
redeundo in meaner causes, much more in matters of this 
nature especially in persons known to be qualified with 
that place and employment, which though unworthy, 
I am vouchsafed, I enforce nothing, thinking I have done 
my part when I have made it known, and so leave it to 
your lordship's honorable consideration. And so with 
signification of my humble duty, etc." (Works, vol. iii., 
p. 91.) 

Like letters were written to Essex and to Robert Cecil, 
now secretary of State. The Merchant of Venice is said 
to have been written this year.' In August of this year 
Lord Burghley died, and from this time Bacon's advance- 
ment became more rapid. 

In 1599 the celebrated case of Perpetuities, though pre- 
viously argued at the bar of the King's Bench, was, by 
reason of difficulties and of its great importance, ordered 
to be reargued in the Exchequer Chamber before all of 
the judges of England, and after an argument by Coke, 
the Attorney-General, another was directed, and Bacon 
was chosen to perform this duty, which he did in so able 
a manner as to render it one of his notable acts. It was 
afterward incorporated with his reading upon the Statute of 
Uses, and dedicated by him to the Society of Gray's Inn. 

Early in this year troubles broke out in Ireland, in 
connection with which Essex's treasons grew, as seen in 
earlier pages. His arrogant and supremely senseless 
course following the queen's refusal to renew his mono^Doly 
of sweet wine worked doubtless some revulsion in Bacon's 
feelings toward him, and which had been but drooping 
since 1596. In his apology concerning the Earl of Essex, 
Bacon says : " But for any action of mine towards him, 
there is nothing that passed me in my lifetime that cometh 
to my remembrance with more clearness and less check of 
conscience ; for it will appear to your Lordship that I 
was not only not opposed to my Lord of Essex, but that 
I did occupy the utmost of my wits, and adventure my 
fortune with the Queen to have reintegrated his, and so 
continued faithfully and industriously till his last fatal 

^ This play will be found to illustrate the thought expressed in 
the following Promus note. Promus, 1003. (The extreme of jus- 
tice [is often] the extreme of injury.) 



212 LIFE OF BACOl^. 

impatience (for so J will call it), after which day there 
was no time to work for him ; thonsjh the same my affec- 
tion, when it conld not work on the subject proper, went 
to the next, with no ill effect towards some others, who 
I think do rather not know it than not acknowledge it. 
And this I will assure your lordship, I will leave nothing 
untold that is truth, for any enemy that I have to add ; 
and on the other side, I must reserve much which makes 
for me, upon many respects of duty, which I esteem above 
my credit : and what I have here set down to your Lord- 
ship, I protest, as I hope to have any part in God's favour, 
is true." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 142.) 

Even Macaulay, who so sharply censures him as to 
Essex, says : " Nothing in the political conduct of Essex 
entitles him to esteem ; and the jjity with which we regard 
his early and terrible end is diminished by the considera- 
tion that he put to hazard the lives and fortunes of his 
most attached friends, and endeavored to throw the whole 
country into confusion for objects purely personal." 

Concerning Essex Mr. Spedding says : " The history 
of his relation with the court is a history of quarrels and 
reconciliations, provocations given and forgiven, the liber- 
ties of a spoiled child with a mother, whose affection 
though mortified and irritated cannot afford to sacrifice 
him ] each victory emboldening him to repeat the same 
experiment, without considering that patience has its 
limits, and that every successive strain put upon the affec- 
tion leaves it less able to endure another. It was a point 
in which Bacon had always thought Essex in the wrong, 
and told him what would come of it." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. i., p. 373.) 

At about this time it was that Queen Elizabeth began 
more definite steps in the direction of colonization, and 
on the last day of 1600 she chartered a body of adven- 
turers styled "The Governor and Company of Merchants 
of London trading to the East Indies." For revenue, 
for expanding the powers of Britain, and for extending 
the Eeformed faith Bacon ever urged colonization. And 
from certain data we have an impression that he was 
personally concerned in some of the voyages of Drake and 
others. The privileges of this company were invaded 
early in the next reign by James. Later, however, he 
renewed their charter, and several voyages were attended 



LIFE OF BACON". 213 

with large profits ; and in 1612 the Englishman planted 
his foot in India, having obtained permission from the 
Great Mogul to establish a factory at Surat. (See Knight's 
History of England, vol. iii., pp. 276-285.) 

Hume says : " What chiefly renders the reign of James 
memorable is the commencement of the English colonies 
in America — colonies established on the noblest footing 
that has been known in any age or nation." (Hume, vol. 
iv., p. 108.) And we shall claim that the moulding of 
them was due chiefly to Lord Bacon. ^ 

The next year, 1601, Bacon's brother Anthony died, and 
in The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. li., p. 53, we have : 

" My brother's death my study hath undone ; 
Woe's me ! alas ! my brother he is gone !" 

During the balance of this reign, which ended with 
Elizabeth's death, March 24th, 1603, Bacon's time seems to 
have been devoted chiefly to literary work. 

Upon the now accession of the Scotch King James, and 
who desired to be thought somewhat a patron of learning, 
Bacon's hopes were quickened even to anticipation of aid 
in putting forth his growing though as yet unpublished 
philosophy. He says he thought the " canvassing world " 
had gone and the " deserving world " had come. 

James arrived in England May 7th, 1603, and on the 
23d, the day of his coronation. Bacon, with three hundred 
others, Lord Coke included, received the now all too 
lavish, indiscriminate, and hence but little valued honor 
of knighthood. Bacon at once sought, and in a marked 
way, to bring himself to the king's notice. Before the 
meeting of his first Parliament he had submitted for his 
consideration two pamphlets, one concerning the Church, 
entitled " Considerations Touching the Better Pacification 
of the Church of England," and the other concerning the 
union of the two kingdoms, entitled " A Discourse Touch- 
ing the Happy Union of England and Scotland." 

Being ever a verb in the present tense. Bacon was pre- 
pared for the hour. He fully realized that lucid, ready- 
made thoughts often stay and fix the mind to courses that 
of itself it would never have reached. This was one of 

' It was out of the charters of the old trading companies that the 
colonial constitutions grew, and they in turn gave form to our 
present central government. 



214 LIFE OF BACOK. 

his methods. This was providence. By this means he 
often found direction out. To our thinking he was now 
led into two unwise steps. First, he wrote to Southamp- 
ton, who since the trial of Essex and until the reign 
of James had remained in prison. The letter, though 
short, seeks to show that he had entertained no unfriendli- 
ness, and that he might now be to him what he dare not 
before, for fear of the queen. (Works, vol. iii., p. 38.) 
Second, he prepared a paper entitled " Sir Francis Bacon, 
His Apology, in Certain Imputations Concerning the Late 
Earl of Essex," and addressed to Lord Mount joy, whom 
the queen had intended to command what proved to be 
the unfortunate Essex expedition into Ireland. Though 
this paper shows loyalty to the earl, and that what was 
done in excusing the queen's conduct toward him was in 
virtue of her express commands, it still drew comment 
and kindled afresh the animosities not only of the earl's, 
but of Southampton's friends. 

James's first Parliament convened March 19th, 1604. 
In an address on the 22d he recommended the union of 
the two kingdoms, the termination of religious discon- 
tents, and an improvement in the laws. Bacon had prior to 
this submitted to the king, a proclamation recommending 
attention to the sufferings of unhappy Ireland, the free- 
dom of trade, and the suppression of briberies and corrup- 
tions. And thus at the very opening of this reign did he 
recommend political reform, as he had early and ever 
recommended legal reform. He also sought reform from 
grave superstitions, as well as from church differences, 
and concerning which even at this period Knight in his 
History of England, vol. iii., p. 248, says : "We must 
not be too ready to hold the legislators of this time as 
peculiarly ignorant in passing a law to declare witchcraft 
felony without benefit of clergy. The superstition was 
productive of enormous cruelties ; but it had its earnest 
supporters, and amongst others, the king himself. The 
popular belief run wholly in that direction." Hence, in 
the Defoe " History of the Devil ;" " History of Magic ;" 
'' History of Apparitions Sacred and Profane ;" *' History 
of Duncan Campbell," and replete with exhaustive re- 
search into ancient records, will appear Bacon's philo- 
sophic weeding of these subjects. And thus again are we 
reminded of our Head-light, '* For 1 have taken all knowl- 



LIFE OF BACON. 215 

edge to be my providence." See, please, at the end of the 
De Augmentis and at the end of the Novum Organ iim the 
subjects upon which Bacon recommends the writing of 
histories. 

While during the reign of the Tudors the spirit of re- 
ligious liberty had been signally aroused, the spirit of 
political freedom had slept until near the close of the 
reign of Elizabeth. In other words, religious contentions 
and foreign foes had quite absorbed men's thoughts. Fol- 
lowing the defeat of the Armada, in 1588, these fears were 
fading, and greater freedom arose in both Church and 
State, and men began to think more upon individual 
rights, upon adventure and discovery, upon foreign trade, 
and upon general financial affairs. In fact, the desire for 
a less arbitrary government was already taking shape in 
the English mind. 

Failing to recognize the signs of the times, this was no 
very opportune moment for the Scotch king, the son of 
the Catholic mother, the executed Mary Queen of Scots, 
who was big in the belief of the divine right of kings, and, 
unmindful of values, was exceedingly lavish in the expen- 
diture of money. He had been born, bred, and from in- 
fancy had ruled beyond. England's borders. The bold 
methods of Elizabeth were attempted by James, and he 
found himself at once questioned in prerogative. The 
attitude of the Commons concerning the union of the two 
kingdoms, as well as to general religious affairs, irritated 
him. While the Puritans did not, as at the beginning of 
Elizabeth's reign, ask the substitution of the Presbyterian 
discipline for the Episcopal government, they still insisted 
upon omitting the usage of certain ceremonies. This 
Bacon thought wise to grant, but James thought other- 
wise, and he attempted to carry out the doctrine of con- 
formity even more strictly than had been done in the pre- 
vious reign. 

The House of Commons had no sooner met than prayers 
for the correction of certain abuses from monopolies, spring- 
ing up in the latter half of the former reign, commenced. 
A select committee, with Bacon as its chairman, was ap- 
pointed, and on the 26th he made his report for the con- 
sideration of the House. This early manifested discontent 
continued during James' entire reign, and brought to the 
block the head of his son Charles in the next. 



216 LIFE OF BACON". 

Kniglit, in his History of England, vol. iii., p. 251, of 
James says : '^ His figure was ungainly ; his habits were 
slovenly ; he was by nature a coward. Not deficient in a 
certain talent which he rarely put to a right use — ' the 
wisest fool in Christendom,' — he had no sense of that 
public responsibility which attended his high office. He 
was a king for himself alone." 

During this conflict in the House Bacon's exertions are 
said to have been unceasing, having sat upon twenty-nine 
committees and spoken in every debate. He was one of 
the commissioners to treat for the union of the two king- 
doms, and to his knowledge of the subject was due the 
admirable manner in which the duties of that body were 
performed. It consisted of forty-four English and thirty- 
one Scotch members, who had power from the Parliament 
to deliberate concerning terms of union, but without 
power of making advances toward establishing it. The 
more the king favored the movement, the more backward 
seemed the Parliament in its concurrence. Though united 
now in their crowns, the kingdoms were not really so in 
their laws until the Defoe period, a hundred years later, 
by Anne's Act of Union, March 6th, 1707, until which 
event each kingdom maintained its own legislative power. 

The king soon perceived Bacon's superior talent, and 
so on August 25th, 1604, constituted him by patent one 
of his counsel learned in the law. Though now politically 
employed, he was still absorbed in philosophic research, 
and during the recess of Parliament he sent his friend. 
Sir Henry Savill, Provost of the College of Eaton, his 
tract entitled " Helps to the Intellectual Powers." Tow- 
ard the close of this year he, in a letter to the Lord Chan- 
cellor, expressed an inclination, at this juncture of the 
two kingdoms, to write a history of Great Britain. He 
says : " Neither could I contain myself here (as it is easier 
for a man to multiply, than to stay a wish), but calling to 
remembrance the unworthiness of the History of England, 
in the main continuance thereof, and the partiality and 
obliquity of that of Scotland, in the latest and largest 
author that I have seen ; I conceived it would be an 
honour for his majesty, and a work very memorable, if 
this island of Great Britain, as it is now joined in mon- 
archy for the ages to come, so it were joined in history for 
the times past ; and that one just and complete history 



LIFE OF BACOK. 217 

were compiled of both nations. And if any man think it 
may refresh the memory of former discord, he may satisfy 
himself with the verse, ' Olim haec meminisse juvabit. ' 
For the case being now altered, it is matter of comfort 
and gratulation, to remember former troubles." (Works, 
vol. iii., p. 23.) 

Shortly before the meeting of James' second Parliament 
and in October, 1605, first appeared Bacon's child, " The 
Advancement of Learning," now taught to go, and which 
he dedicated to the king. He had indeed indulged the 
hope of interesting him in his efforts and of now abandon- 
ing civil affairs. The king's loves, however, lay but feebly 
in this direction. 

The work professes to be a general survey of the then 
existing state of knowledge under the figure of an intel- 
lectual globe, whereon is mapped forth the desert portions 
and the portions but partially discovered or explored, and 
which he presents under the comprehensive heads of 

1. History relating to tbe memory. 

2. Poetry relating to the imagination. 

3. Philosophy relating to the reason. 

The way to the examination of these subjects is paved 
or prepared in the first book by an examination of the 
objections to learning ; of contentious learning ; of fantas- 
tical learning ; of peccant humors of learning, together with 
the advantages of learning. In order to attract the king's 
eye, the work had been somewhat immaturely put forth, 
and hence it was later reproduced or rewritten under the 
title of the De Augmentis, in which form it was designed 
by Bacon to have place as the first part of the Great Instau- 
ration. 

The work was but the coasting of the intellectual globe 
as then existing. The new intellectual world was to exist 
Avhen the subjects mentioned at the close of the work itself 
were elaborated. And this was to be the golden world, 
or, as stated in the play of The Tempest, " The brave new 
world." 

In November, 1605, James' second Parliament con- 
vened. Even thus early in his reign his Secretary of 
State, Robert Cecil, now Earl of Salisbury, and whom the 
king called his little " beagle," was puzzling his brain 
over the ever-difficult problem during this reign of pro- 
viding money for this extravagant king and his rapacious 



218 LIFE OF BACON. 

followers, now absent upon a hunting excursion at Royton. 
Thus stood matters when the knowledge of the great Gun- 
powder Plot was sprung upon the country. This noted 
conspiracy against the life of the king and Parliament, 
and which had been in progress since the spring and sum- 
mer of 1604, absorbed chiefly the attention of this Parlia- 
ment, and for a time warmer feelings seem to have been 
entertained toward the king. It was claimed that James 
had entered into engagements with the Catholic party to 
tolerate their religion as soon as he mounted the English 
throne. And certain it is that covertly he had a bias in 
favor of Rome. Already had he manifested undue haste 
in concluding a peace with Spain, that for years had so 
vigorously sought England's overthrow. Following this 
event, he gave trust and preferment almost indiscriminately 
to his Catholic and Protestant subjects, and he greatly 
abated the rigor of the laws enacted against the ancient 
Church. The duplicity of his nature became more ap- 
parent, however, toward the close of his reign and follow- 
ing the year 1616. The unfinished business of the former 
session still occupied Bacon's thoughts, and the then out- 
look drew him from his purpose of devoting his time only 
to philosophy. He saw that the union of these kingdoms 
was likely to breed grave changes and that his country at 
this juncture needed his services. 

In May, 1606, he, at the age of forty-six, was married 
to Miss Alice Barnham. Of his married life very little is 
known. From his Essay on Marriage it will appear that 
he did not look very favorably upon the relation unless 
there be true adaptation. And the views expressed in all of 
these writings will be found to be one upon this subject.^ 
They will be found spoken of throughout either as " gentle- 
women" or *' wenches." Read attentively Bacon's Essay 



^ Promus, 1085. (" Wbma7i's a various and a changeful tiling.'' — 
Dryden.) Promus, 1086. (" He knew the stormy souls of icoman- 
A;/?id"— Dryden.) Promus, 526. There is no trusting a woman nor 
a tap. Promus, 492. Bachelors' wives and maids' children are well 
taught. Promus, 575. It is the cat's nature and the wench's fault. 

" If the cat will after kind 
So, be sure, will Rosalind." 

—As You Like It, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 197. 
Please see Addison, vol. iii., pp. 85-89. 



LIFE OF BACON. 219 

on MaiTJage in connection with the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, vol. ii., pp. 379-89 and pp. 413-22, and see Roxana, 
pp. 114, 115, 233. In the Anatomy, p. 382, we have : 

*' What shall I say to him that marries again and 
again? ' Stulta maritali qui porrigit ora capistro.' I 
pity him not ; for the first time he may do as he may, 
bear it out sometimes by the head and shoulders, and let 
his next neighbor ride, or else run away, or as that Syra- 
cusian, in a tempest, when all ponderous things were to 
be exonerated out of the ship, quia maxumim jyondus erat, 
fling his wife into the sea. But this I confess is comically 
spoken, and so I pray you take it. In sober sadness, 
marriage is a bondage, a thraldom, a yoke, a hindrance to 
all good enterprises ; he hath mai^ried a ivife, and cannot 
come ; a stop to all preferments ; a rock on which many 
are saved, many impinge and are cast away : not that the 
thing is evil in itself, or troublesome, but full of all con- 
tentment and happiness ; one of the three things which 
pleases God, when a man and his wife agree together ; an 
honorable and happy state ; who knows it not ?" 

James at his accession confirmed generally in place 
those who had held positions under Elizabeth. But dur- 
ing the summer of this year Salisbury's friend, Hobart, 
was made Attorney-General in place of Coke, now appointed 
to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas, and Bacon 
hoped that Solicitor Doderidge might be otherwise provided 
for, in order that he might now be Solicitor ; but Salis- 
bury, though professing friendship, is still thought to have 
stood in his way ; and when Parliament met in November, 
1606, Bacon returned to his work upon questions touching 
the union — such as " Ante-nati" and **Post-nati ;" or, the 
position of Scotchmen born before and since James' acces- 
sion ; the question of " Naturalization ;" and the question 
of '* Union of Laws." To this session the commissioners 
of the union first presented their work. See vol. iii., 
ch. 8, Bacon's Letters. 

Hume says : " There remain two excellent speeches in 
favour of the union, which it would not be improper to 
compare together — that of the king and that of Sir Francis 
Bacon. Those who affect in everything such an ex- 
treme contempt for James will be surprised to find that 
his discourse, both for good reasoning and eloquent com- 
position, approaches very near that of a man who was un- 



220 LIFE OF BACON". 

doubtedly at that time one of the greatest geniuses in 
Europe." (Hume, vol. iii., p. 611.) 

It is well known that Bacon assisted James, the Cecils, 
and others in such papers. Mr. Spedding says that even 
in reporting the speeches of others he was accustomed to 
give the thought better form. In this way he ever made 
his own style more difficult to detect. The work of the 
commission ended merely in the abolition of hostile laws 
between the two kingdoms. 

In January of this year Bacon presented the king with 
a New Year's gift, consisting of a discourse touching the 
plantation of Ireland, and which he styles as a second 
brother to the one entitled the " Union of England and 
Scotland." This year James granted patents to two cor- 
porations to colonize that part of America lying between 
the 34th and 45th degrees of north latitude, the north 
half being granted to the Plymouth, and the south half 
to the London Company ; and which company in the fol- 
lowing year planted in Virginia the first permanent Eng- 
lish settlement in America, and which in honor of the 
king was called Jamestown. 

In June of the following year, 1G07, the long-sought 
position of Solicitor-General was reached by Bacon at the 
age of forty- seven years, as mentioned in earlier pages, 
and with an annual salary of about £1000. To this was 
added £2000 from the reversion of the Clerkship of the 
Star Chamber, secured to him in 1589, but not until now 
falling into possession. For some time Bacon's financial 
prospects had been mending ; and though by no means free 
from debt, he is said now to have had a large income. It 
may also be said, though unfortunate for him, that he 
had now secured political footing in the government of 
James. Whatever may be thought of Bacon's political 
views, they were centred deep in what he regarded as 
biblical truth. Kings, though possessing errors of private 
life, were to him but kinds of instruments in the hand of 
Divine Providence. Their foibles should be shielded from 
the public gaze, as being the chief forms, figures, or pat- 
terns on earth to men. And so in the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, vol. i., p. 71, we have : 

" For princes are the glass, the school, the book, 
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look." 



LIFE OF BACON". 221 

His views in this will somewhat clearly appear in his 
carefully prepared paper of advice to George Villiers, 
afterward Duke of Buckingham, upon his becoming the 
king's favorite a few years later, and from which we quote 
as follows : 

"You know, I am no courtier, nor versed in state 
affairs : my life hitherto hath rather been contemplative 
than active ; I have rather studied books than men ; I 
can but guess at the most, at those things in which you 
desire to be advised ; nevertheless, to show my obedience, 
though with the hazard of my discretion, I shall yield 
unto you. 

" Sir, in the first place, I shall be bold to put you in 
mind of the present condition you are in. You are not 
only a courtier, but a bed-chamber man, and so are in the 
eye and ear of your master ; but you are also a favorite ; 
the favorite of the time, and so are in the bosom also. 
The M^orld hath so voted you, and doth so esteem of you ; 
for kings and great princes, even the wisest of them, have 
had their friends, their favorites, their privadoes, in all 
ages ; for they have their affections as well as other men. 
Of these they make several uses ; sometimes to communi- 
cate and debate their thoughts with them, and to ripen 
their judgments thereby ; and sometimes to ease^ their 
cares by imparting them ; and sometimes to interpose 
them between themselves and the envy or malice of their 
people ; for kings cannot err ; that must be discharged 
upon the shoulders of their ministers ; and they who are 
nearest unto them must be content to bear the greatest 
load." (Works, vol. ii., p. 375.) 

In entering upon his new duties as Solicitor, in the sum- 
mer of 1608, he takes soundings, so to speak, as to his 
health, life aims, new methods to be pursued, etc., de- 
voting an entire week in preparing notes upon the subject. 
Among these we find " Eestor. the church to y^ trew limits 
of Authority since H. 8ths confusion/' ^ They will be 

' Note throughout this use of the word " ease," and particularly 
in The Pilgrim's Progiess. 

'^ There is a distinctiveness in the use throughout of this word 
" confusion" that renders it a kind of earmark. In Hamlet, Act iii., 
sc. 1, p. 273, we have : 

" King. And can you, by no drift of conference, 
Get from him why he puts on this confusion ; 



222 LIFE OF BACON". 

found in Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., pp. 18-96. Concern- 
ing them. Church, in his Life of Bacon, p. 79, says : 

" The * greatness of Britain ' was one of his favorite 
subjects of meditation. He puts down in his notes the 
outline of what should be aimed at to secure and increase 
it ; it is to make the various forces of the great and grow- 
ing empire work together in harmonious order without 
waste, without jealousy, without encroachment and col- 
lision ; to unite not only the interests but the sympathies 
and aims of the Crown with those of the people and Parlia- 
ment ; and so to make Britain now in peril from nothing 
but from strength of its own discordant elements that 

* monarchy of the west ' in reality, which Spain was in 
show, and as Bacon always maintained, only in show.' 
The survey of tiie condition of his philosophical enterprise 
takes more space. He notes the stages and points to 
which his plans have reached ; he indicates, with a favor- 
ite quotation or apophthegm—' Phis iiltra^ — - ausus vana 
cotitemnere' — ^ adUus non nisi sub persona infantis,'' soon 
to be familiar to the world in his published writings — the 
lines of argument, sometimes alternative ones, which were 
before him ; he draws out schemes of inquiry, specimen 
tables, distinctions and classifications about the subject of 
Motion, in English interlarded with Latin, or in Latin 
interlarded with English, of his characteristic and practi- 
cal sort ; he notes the various sources from which he 
might look for help and co-operation — ' of learned men 
be3^ond the seas ' — * to begin first in France to print it ' — 

* laying for a place to command wits and pens ; ' he has his 
eye on rich and childless bishops, on the enforced idleness 
of State prisoners in the Tower, like ^Northumberland and 
Raleigh,^ on the great schools and universities, where he 
might perhaps get hold of some college for ' Inventors ' — 

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet 
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy ?" 
In Romeo and Juliet, Act iv., sc. 5, p. 142, we have : 

" Fri. Peace, ho, for shame ! confusion's cur lives not 
In these confusions." 
^ See what he says concerning the plantation of new colonies in his 
advice to George Vllliers upon his becoming the king's favorite. 
(Works, vol. i., pp. 385-87 ) 

'■* Let Bacon's speech " Touching the Recovery of Drowned Min- 
eral Works," already quoted, be called into relation with Raleigh's 
enterprise, liereafter to be considered. 



LIFE OF BACON. 223 

as we should say for the endowment of research. These 
matters fill up a large space of his notes. '^ 

This preparation for all possible occasions is prettily 
expressed in the Anatomy of Melancholy, yoI. ii., p. 64, 
in these words : 

" No labour comes at unawares to me ; 
For I have long before cast what may be." ' 

Church, at pp. 78-79, also says of these notes : ** It is 
singularly interesting as an evidence of Bacon's way of 
working, of his watchfulness, his industry, his care and 
preparing himself long beforehand for possible occasions, 
his readiness to take any amount of trouble about his 
present duties, his self-reliant desire for more important 
and difficult ones. It exhibits his habit of self-observa- 
tion and self-correction, his care to mend his natural de- 
fects of voice, manner and delivery ; it is even more curi- 
ous in showing him watching his own physical constitution 
and health, in the most minute details of symptoms and 

^ Promus, 380. (To me, O virgin ! no aspect of suffering arises new 
or unexpected : I have anticipated all things and gone over them 
beforehand in my mind.) And note throughout, and particularly 
in the plays, a distinctive poetic use of this verb "be." Promus, 
975. Frenzy, heresy, and jealousy are three that seldom or never 
cured be. Promus, 500. Tymely crooks the tree that will a good 
camocke be. In Twelfth Night, or What You will, Act ii., sc. 3, 
p. 377, we have : 

" Alas ! our frailty is the cause, not we ; 
For, such as we are made of, such we be." 

And same play. Act iii., sc. 4, p. 411, we have : 

" on. Go call him hither. — I am as mad as he, 
If sad and merry madness equal be." 

In Measure for Measure, Act i., sc. 4, p. 33, we have ; 

" Hence shall we see. 
If power change purpose, what our seemers be." 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 211, we have : 

" 'Tis thus, they rescu'd were ; but yet, you see. 
They're scourg'd to boot : let this your caution be." 

And on p. 69 we have : 

" The prophets used much by metaphors 
To set forth truth : yea, wlio so considers 
Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see 
That truths to this day in such mantels be." 



224 LIFE OF BACON". 

remedies, equally with scientific and a practical object.* 
It contains an estimate of his income, his expenditures, 
his debts, schedules of land and jewels, his rules for the 
economy of his estate, his plans for his new gardens and 
terraces and ponds and buildings at Gorhambury." 

In a letter to Queen Elizabeth, in 1599, asking assist- 
ance to. free his Tub, his Gorhambury residence, from 
debt, may be seen this intention of beautifying it and its 
grounds, and he ends the letter thus : '' And so most 
humbly craving pardon, I leave all to your Majesty's good- 
ness, and yourself to the dear preservation of the divine 
Majesty : from my Tub not yet hallowed by your sacred 
Majesty, this 12th of March 1599. " (Bacon' s"^ Letters, vol. 
ii., p. 165.) This letter came not to light until after 
Harley's death, as we shall see. 

The Advancement of Learning had been now three, or 
nearly three years out. And the babe or child this year, 
1608, began to be clothed as the Novum Organum. 

" Truth is the daughter of time," says Bacon. This 
daughter is the Miranda of The Tempest. In his article 
on the Interpretation of Nature (Works, vol. ii., p. 544), 
as to certain subtle philosophic methods, he says : *' Such 
works are called Epistemides, or daughters of science, which 
do not otherwise come into action than by knowledge and 
pure interpretation, seeing they contain nothing obvious. 
But between these and the obvious how many degrees 
thinkest thou are numbered?'' Receive, my son, and 
seal." 

And in his article entitled '* True Hints on the Inter- 
pretation of Nature" (Works, vol. ii., p. 557), he, as to his 
philosophy, says : *' Why, I met not long ago a certain evil- 
eyed old fortune -telling woman who muttering I know not 
what, prophesied that my offspring should die in the 
desert." 

Concerning Miranda's birth, Prospero in this play. Act 
i., sc. 2, p. 22, says : 

" Canst thou remember 
A time before we came unto this cell ? . 
I do not think thou canst ; for then thou wast not 
Out three years old." 

' His tendencies at times to melancholy we have already noted. 
'^ We shall later have occasion to refer to Bacon's references touch- 
ing the numbers of Pythagoras in connection with philosophy. 



LIFE OF BACON". 225 

Hudson says tliat the word " out" is used for entirely, 
quite.' 

A little farther on Prospero says : 

" Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since, 
Thy father was the duke of Milan, and 
A prince of power." 

This dukedom was his empire of learning, concerning 
which he had laid such deep basis for eternity, and now 
overtlirown by the ruin of his name. (See Sonnet 124, 
p. 90.) 

Hence, in 1608, his babe or child, the Advancement of 
Learning, had been but three years out. Until Bacon en- 
tered actively into the government of James, in 1G08, he 
was a free man, a prince over his literary empire.'^ The 
persons or midwives that attended upon Miranda's birth 
may refer to the forms through which this truth had been 
swjiddled on its way to its birth, or, pcrliaps, to the old 
philosophies perused by Bacon in the unfoldment of his 
own — his Miranda. What she was to do for the world 
when wedded to a prince of power may be seen later. 

In 1609 lie made his third appearance as an author, 
and in one of his most finished works, entitled l)e Sapientia 

^ Fowler in his work on Bacon, in the English Philosophers Series, 
p. 12, says : " It was probably about this time that he finally settled 
the plan of the Great Instauration, and began to call it by that name. 
The Gogiicia et Visa, which contains the substance of the first book 
of the Koviun Organum, must have been composed as early as the 
summer or autumn of 1607, and, if w^e may accept literally what 
Rawley tells us of this latter w^ork— namel}^ that he had liimself 
seen at least twelve revisions of it, ' revised year by year, one after 
another,' we must fix the year 1608 as the time at which Bacon prob- 
ably began to compose the Novum Organum itself." 

- Note in the play the twelve years Ariel, or the airy spirit, cogita- 
tive faculty, w^as pent in an oak. And in Love's Labor's Lost, Act iv., 
sc. 2, p. 414, we have : " Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee 
like osiers bow^'d," The oak is often referred to in the plays. Of 
the oak Bacon says : " There is no tree which, besides the natural 
fruit, doth bear so" many bastard fruits as the oak doth : for besides 
the acorn, it beareth galls, oak-apples, and certain oak-nuts, which 
are inflammable ; and certain oak-berries, sticking close to the body of 
the tree without stalk. It beareth also misseltoe, though rarely. The 
cause of all these may be, the closeness and solidness of the wood and 
pith of the oak ; wiiich maketh several juices find several eruptions. 
And therefore if you will devise to make any super- plants, you must 
give the sap plentiful rising and hard issue." (Bacon's Natural His- 
tory, sub. 635.) 

8 



226 LIFE OF BACON". 

Veternm, or the " Wisdom of the Ancients." The fables 
here treated are thirty-one in number. They abound in 
deep poetic thought, which will be found spread into 
nearly every phase of this literature.' Three of these 
fables — "Pan, or Nature;" "Perseus, or War;" and 
*' Dionysus, or Bacchus" — will be found considerably 
expanded in the De Augmentis. 

As to the fable of the " Sirens or Pleasures," he says : 
" These Sirens are said to dwell in remote isles, for that 
pleasures love privacy and retired places, shunning always 
too much company of people. The Siren's songs are so 
vulgarly understood, together with the deceits and danger 
of them, as that they need no exposition. But that of 
the bones appearing like white cliffs,'^ and descried afar 
off, hath more acuteness in it : for thereby is signified, 
that albeit the examples of afflictions be manifest and 
eminent, yet do they not sufficiently deter us from the 
wicked enticements of pleasures." (Works, vol. i., p. 313.) 

Bacon here shows that these pleasures are resisted through 
the methods either of Orpheus or Ulysses, and concerning 
which he says : " The first means to shun these inordinate 
pleasures is to withstand and resist them in their begin- 
nings, and seriously to shun all occasions that are offered 
to debauch and entice the mind, which is signified in that 
stopping of the ears f and that remedy is properly used by 

^ Note them particularly as woven into the works of Addison. 
But in vol. iv. of his works, p. 44, it is stated that the heathen 
mythology should thenceforth be abandoned in literary work, except 
as therein provided. The new philosophy was now to govern, out of 
Christian, instead of heathen pens. The peace alluded to in the 
article will be better understood when we come to Swift's " Battle 
of the Books," Swift being one of the actors in the great drama. 

2 In the Comedy of Errors, Act iii., sc, 2, p. 182, we have : 

" Dro. &. I look'd for the chalky clifTs, but I could find no white- 
ness in them : but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that 
ran between France and it. ' ' 

^ Note the expression "whisper in the ear" throughout these 
writings. Bacon says: "That courtier who obtains a boon of the 
Emperor, that he might every morning at his coming into his presence 
humbly whisper him in the ear and say nothing, asked no un- 
profitable suit for himself ; but such a fancy raised only by an opin- 
ion cannot be long lived, unless the man have solid worth to uphold 
it : otherwise when once discovered it vanisheth suddenly. " (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vi., p. 15.) And in vol. 7, p. 423, he says : " At that 
time if one had whispered me in the ear, and said stay these things : 
England is a cold coi.ntry : defer them till the Prince of Wales and 



LIFE OF BACON". 227 

the meaner and baser sort of people, as it were Ulysses's 
followers or mariners, Avhereas more heroic and noble 
spirits may boldly converse even in the midst of these 
seducing pleasures, if with a resolute constancy they stand 
upon their guard and fortify their minds, and so take 
greater contentment in the trial and experience of this 
approved virtue ; learning rather thoroughly to under- 
stand the follies and vanities of those pleasures by con- 
templation than by submission." 

He here also says : " For the remedying of this misery 
a double means was at last found out, the one by Ulysses, 
the other by Orpheus. Ulysses, to make experiment of 
his device, caused all the ears of his company to be stopped 
with wax, and made himself to be bound to the mainmast, 
with special commandment to his mariners not to be 
loosed, albeit himself should require them so to do. But 
Orpheus neglected and disdained to be so bound, with a 
shrill and sweet voice singing praises of the gods to his 
harp, suppressed the songs of the Sirens, and so freed 
himself from their danger." See Sonnet 119, p. 28. 

Other important papers were prepared by Bacon during 
this year. 

Early in the next year, 1610, James' notable fourth 
Parliament convened, and concerned itself chiefly with 
what became known as " The Great Contract." This was 
Salisbury's pet scheme during the last two years of his 
life for advancing the king's revenue, and who was now 
compelled to disclose his necessities, even to seeking private 
aid. It was no very decorous transaction, as between king 
and people. Having ended in failure, it was fruitful but 
in making prominent to all eyes the king's weakness. 
By this scheme he was to surrender certain revenue pre- 
rogatives touching wardships and purveyance, abuses of 
which had been more or less complained of during earlier 
sessions. The Commons, in consideration for this sur- 
render, offered him a settled revenue of £200,000 a year. 

the Marquis of Buckingham and the Count Gondomar meet in Spain , 
where fruit ripens faster : I should have smiled at it." In The Pil- 
grim's Progress, p. 144, we have : " But indeed this Shame was a bold 
villain ; I could scarcely shake him out of my company ; yea, he 
would be hunting of me, and continually whispering me in the ear 
with some one or other of the infirmities that attend religion. " Note 
this expression in the Defoe literature, and particularly in the History 
of the Devil. 



228 LIFE OF BACOK. 

After much cavil the king consented to surrender these 
ancient rights, and thus to supply his necessities, did 
he yield to encroachments. It now but remained for 
the Commons to designate the funds from which the suai 
should be paid. As the journals of this session are said 
to be missing, the reasons for the failure are left somewhat 
in the dark. It does, however, appear that the king, 
highly indignant at the failure, immediately dissolved the 
Parliament, and which through different sessions had sat 
nearly seven years. 

Concerning this scheme Bacon says : " But in the suc- 
ceeding Parliament in 7°, when that the Lord Treasurer 
that last was had out of his own vast and glorious ways to 
poor and petty ends, set afoot the Great Contract, like 
the Tower of Babylon, building an imagination as if the 
king should never after need his people more, nor the 
people the King, but that this land should no more be 
like the land of promise watered by the dew of heaven, 
which sometimes was drawn from the earth and some- 
times fell back upon the earth again ; but like the land 
of Egypt watered by certain streams and cuts of his own 
devising ; and afterwards either out of variety, or having 
met with somewhat' that he looked not for, or otherwise 
having made use of the opinion, in the end undid his baby 
that he had made, — then grew the change." (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. v., p. 178.) 

Early in the last session notice was received of the as- 
sassination of the Erench monarch, Henry the Fourth. 
He had been educated a Protestant. This event awakened 
fears afresh throughout Europe touching the Papacy. 
The Commons, consisting now of a large Puritan element, 
sought to limit the royal prerogative in ecclesiastical 
matters, and which since the reign of Henry the Eighth 
had been regarded as exclusively in the crown. They 
sought to pass a bill against the establishment of any 
ecclesiastical canon without consent of Parliament. The 

^ Note this distinctive use of the word " somewhat." In Measure 
for Measure, Act v., sc. 1, p. IIG, we have ; 

" Isab. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale." 

Promus, 953. Somewhat is better than nothing. In The Merry 
Wives of Windsor. Act iv., sc. 5, p. 318, we have : " Here is a letter 
will say somewhat." 



LIFE OF BACON". 229 

Lords, however, as was usual, defended the barriers of the 
throne and rejected the bill. 

The Commons also, in an address to the king, objected 
to his borrowing money upon privy seals, and desired that 
the subjects should not be forced to lend money to his 
majesty nor give a reason for their refusal, and so the 
spirit of the Commons at the dissolution of the Parliament 
in February, 1611, may be readily seen. 

In Bacon's alluded-to speech touching Drowned Mineral 
Works may be found an allusion to the noted Sutton 
Hospital case, and which arose through a contest of the 
will of one Thomas Sutton who died in December of this 
year. This will provided for the founding of a certain 
charter house or hospital, in which Sutton is said to have 
had much interest. Bacon for a time opposed the enter- 
prise, and prepared a paper to the king concerning it, and 
which shows his objections to be (1) fears of profligacy, 
which was rife at this period, and (2) fears of its being 
an instrument for propagating the Roman faith. See 
Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., pp. 249-55. 

Concerning its alms feature, he, on p. 251, says : *' And 
of this kind I can find but one example with us, which is 
the alms knights of Windsor ; which particular would 
give a man small encouragement to follow that precedent." 
See Shakespeare^s Merry Wives of Windsor. 

The mentioned speech was, we judge, prepared some 
later, after this enterprise had become a success, and made 
doubtless in connection with a Baconian scheme for rev- 
enue hereafter to be considered. This speech, like the 
New Atlantis itself, will be found to touch at many 
points in Bacon's attributed work ; and we indeed think it 
a most characteristic piece of writing, though Mr. Sped- 
ding has failed to give it place in his work. 

The last Parliament had not supplied the king's neces- 
sities. England's debt was now £500,000 and the ex- 
penditure in excess of the annual revenue was £160,000 
when, on May 24th, 1612, its Lord Treasurer, Salisbury, 
died. Bacon felt the times to be critical and hence to 
demand his most subtle care. The king's tendencies and 
the signs of the times were already in his eye. The 
duties of Prime Minister or Treasurer fell now into the 
keeping of the king's own hands, and from this moment 
the government of James became one, not through a 



230 LIFE OF BACON". 

public minister, but one managed through and by means 
of unscrupulous favorites, who, the king included, looked 
merely for themselves. Bacon hoped to succeed to Salis- 
bury's position, but Northampton, entertaining Catholic 
views, and with a particular design in them, as we shall 
see, was decidedly against it. He had a controlling influ- 
ence with Somerset, the king's favorite, and was the most 
powerful man in the Government of tlames. 

A strange step was now taken touching England's 
Treasury. It was jilaced in commission, and Bacon was 
made one of the sub-commissioners.^ These courses were 
not approved by him. He ever urged the king to a re- 
liance upon Parliament and the appointment of a Treas- 
urer. He still under them did what he could toward the 
improvement of the revenue ; and later, as we shall see, he 
devised some important scheme concerning the same, but 
which to this day remains, as to him, undisclosed. 

On November Gth of this year died the king's eldest 
son, Henry, Prince of Wales, at the age of nineteen. In 
him the Protestant hope of the nation was centred. He 
was an ardent admirer of Elizabeth's brave hero, Raleigh, 
and says : " Sure no king but my father would keep such 
a bird in a cage." Whatever may have been the cause, 
he at least appears to have been somewhat distasteful to 
the king. At his death grave suspicions were entertained 
that he had been poisoned, and that James and his then 
favorite, Rochester, afterward Earl of Somerset, knew 
something concerning his taking off. 

Salisbury's death had left vacant the lucrative position 
of Master of the Wards, to which position he had suc- 
ceeded upon his father's death, and Bacon was talked of 
for, and probably expected the position, having prepared 
a speech for tlie new master's place and drawn up rules 
for it. The office went, however, to George Carey, upon 
whose death, soon after. Bacon applied for the position 
through the then favorite Rochester in these words, and 
which is the only letter known to have passed between 
these parties : 

" It may please your good L.: This Mastership of 
the Wards is like a mist. Sometimes it goeth upwards, 

' As to the projects devised for aiding out the revenue, see Bacon's 
Letters, voL iv., pp. 314-39. As to the scheme itself see p. 283. 



LIFE OF BACON". 231 

and sometimes it falleth downwards. If it go up to great 
Lords, then it is as it was at the first ; if it fall down to 
mean men, then it is as it was at the last. But neither of 
these ways concern me in particular. Bnt if it should in 
a middle region' go to lawyers, then I beseech your L. 
have some care of me. The Attorney and the Solicitor are 
as the king's champions for civil business, and they had 
need have some place of rest in their eye for their en- 
couragement. The Mastership of the Rolls, which was the 
ordinary place kept for them, is gone from them. If this 
place should go to a lawyer, and not to them, their hopes 
must diminish. Thus 1 rest," etc. (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
iv., p. 342.) 

But Bacon would not conform to the new methods of 
paying tribute to favorites (see his letter to the king, 
p. 245), and so the office went to Sir Walter Cope. It was 
now manipulated as the king would have it, under his own 
eye. See Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., pp. 283-89. During 
the following year the Chief Justiceship of the King's 
Bench fell vacant, to which position, at Bacon's sugges- 
tion, Coke, ever troublesome upon questions of prerogative 
was, though distasteful to him, appointed ; and Hobart 
was appointed to his position in the Common Pleas, thus 
leaving vacant the office of Attorney-General, to which 
position Bacon now succeeded, October 27th, 1613 ; and 
Yelverton became Solicitor. 

Erom this moment Bacon became a more confidential 
adviser of the king. But unfortunately James had not 
the sagacity, the breadth of views, the steadiness of nerve, 
nor the honesty of purpose, either to accept, or to carry 
forward Bacon's views of empire. He, as Knight says, 
was but a king for himself alone. 

This year also, and on February 14th the king's daughter, 
the Princess Elizabeth, became wedded to Frederick the 
Fifth of Germany, the Elector Palatine, Bacon preparing 
the necessary papers for the event, and probably the mask 
given in honor of it. Frederick, upon undertaking the 
government of his Palatinate, two years later, became the 
head of the Protestant union of German princes, on which 
account, coupled with his then relation with England, he 

^ We liere again have the expression "the middle region, " men- 
tioned in earlier pages. 



232 LIFE OF BACON". 

was, in 1619, chosen King of Boliemia, then in revolt, but 
to the great discomfiture of Spain, as Ave shall see. 

Bacon now implored the king to discontinue the un- 
warranted methods being pursued for revenue and to 
summon a Parliament. This advice was finally acted 
upon, and a Parliament was convened in April, 1614, upon 
the opening of which Bacon is said to have made an able 
speech. A rumor, however, arose that certain persons, 
and chiefly those who had opposed a Parliament, and 
called '' undertakers," had entered upon an undertaking 
to secure a majority to enable the king to control the 
House, and so nothing could be effected. In order to 
secure liberty the Commons were now losing their true 
ends, as Bacon well saw, and he made effort to stay this 
influence. The times wei'e critical. The nation was sadly 
in debt. Spain, with the Pope at her back, was ready to 
invade at the slightest pretext. The Dutch would gladly 
have beaten the English merchants out of the markets of 
the world, and the pirates of Algiers and Tunis were 
plundering them as they passed. Unable now to obtain 
any aid from Parliament, certain of the nobility and clergy 
in and about London made presents to the king. Letters 
were written to sheriffs and to justices in the different coun- 
ties, to magistrates of corporations and others, informing 
them of what had been done in the metropolis, and stating 
how acceptable similar expressions would be from the 
country. Concerning this mode of raising money, one 
Oliver St. John, said to be a gentleman of an ancient 
family, wrote, October 11th, 1614, to the Mayor of Marl- 
borough, claiming this benevolence was against law, reason, 
and religion, and insinuating that the king by promoting 
it had violated his coronation oath, and that by such 
means as these King Richard the Second had given Henry 
the Fourth an opportunity to deprive him of his crown ; 
and desiring, if thought fit, that its sentiments should be 
expressed to the justices who were to meet respecting the 
benevolences. St. John for this was tried in tlie Star 
Chamber, April 15th, 1615, by the Attorney-General, 
Bacon, as counsel for the- crown. St. John was convicted 
and fined £5000 ; was to be imprisoned during the king's 
pleasure, and ordered to make submission in writing. 
This period presents elements, we think, entering into 
the play of Timon of Athens, and which first made its 



LIFE OF baco:n". -233 

appearance in the Great Folio of 1623. See Anatomy of 
Melancholy as to Timon, vol. ii., pp. 167-70. 

At about this time Bacon was much concerned with the 
king's needs, as will appear from his letter to him, Jan- 
uary 22d, 1615, and wherein he says : " There is another 
business proper for me to crave of your majesty at this 
time, as one that have, in my eye, a great deal of service 
to be done concerning your casual revenue ; but consider- 
ing times and persons, I desire to be strengthened by some 
such form of commandment under your royal hand, as I 
send you here enclosed." (Works, vol. ii., p. 326.) 

To this early caution and care he refers later in Sonnet 
48, as well as alludes to his literary products being held by 
the king as trifles. He says : 

" How careful was I, when I took my way, 
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust ; 
That to my use it mii^lit unused stay 
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards' of trust ! 
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, 
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief, 
Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care. 
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. 
Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest, 
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art. 
Within the gentle closure of my breast, from 
Whence at pleasure thou may'st come and part ; 
And even thence thou wilt be stol'n, I fear, 
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear." 

St. John after a short imprisonment was released upon 
making full submission and apology, and which in this 
case was probably the chief end of the prosecution, as the 
tine was remitted. Other prosecutions followed against 
Pecham, Talbot, Owen, and others for treasonable ex- 
pressions growing out of then existing dissensions. Owen 

1 The word " ward " is thus used by Bacon. " Since, I thank 
God, I am prettily recovered ; for I have lain at two wards, the one 
against my disease, the other against my physicians, who are strange 
creatures." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 431.) As to the mysteries 
of religion Bacon says : " With regard to the explanation of the 
mysteries, we see that God vouchsafes to descend to the weakness of 
our apprehension, by so expressing his mysteries that they may be 
most sensiljle to us ; and by grafting his rev^elations upon the notions 
and conceptions of our reason ; and by applying his inspirations to 
open our understanding, as the form of the key to the ward of the 
lock." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 114.) 



234 LIFE OF BACOX. 

was convicted, and remained in prison until July, 1018, 
when the Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar, procured his fall 
pardon on condition of his leaving the country. And 
what interest had the Spanish Ambassador in this matter? 
We would that Bacon's most able charge in this case may 
be read, not merely by reason of our intention of calling 
it into relation with the Defoe literature, but in order 
that the reader may be convinced that Jkcon's subtle 
design in it — the case yielding the opportunity— was to 
stay tendencies which he then saw in the king and others 
toward Spain. It was spoken on May 17th, 1615, and 
will be found in Bacon's Letters, vol. v., pp. 160-67. 

Under the strictest pressure from the king during some 
of these trials, steps were taken by Bacon which at the 
present day would be thought improper. These must be 
looked at, however, as of the age in which they occurred. 
England's modern ideas of jurisprudence were not yet. 
At that day the king was thought to be the fountain of law, 
the seats of justice were his seats, and good government 
consisted but in carrying out judiciously the royal will, 
the hampering of which had been but recently begun. 
Coke, one of the judges before whom these causes were 
tried, was becoming troublesome to the king in various 
ways on questions of prerogative. The mentioned im- 
propriety consisted in the king's resolution to obtain the 
opinion of the judges upon certain legal points before the 
prosecutions commenced in certain of these cases, and 
Bacon was employed to confer with Coke and other of the 
judges for the purpose. Suppose he had not complied? 
And yet, it is needless to say that such a course would now 
be censured. In case of conviction, however, where the 
facts would warrant it, Bacon seems ever to have urged 
upon the king that " mercy is above the sceptered sway." 

It was at about this time that Bacon presented the king 
with some important scheme (Salisbury's had failed) 
touching his revenue, and of which Mr. Spedding says : 

" Easter term began in 1615 on the 26th of April, and 
Bacon returned from his vacation with a budget of papers 
for the King on the means of improving his revenue. I 
have not succeeded in finding any which answer the de- 
scription, and I am afraid they are altogether lost. If 
they should ever be recovered they can hardly fail to throw 
light of the most valuable kind upon his political prin- 



LIFE OF BACON. 23 



ciples ; being a contribution entirely voluntary to the 
solution of the main political difficulty of his times. As 
it is, we must content ourselves with the knowledge, de- 
rived from the next letter, that this was the subject, or one 
of the subjects, with which he was busy during the interval 
of comparative leisure between the law- terms." 

The letter is as follows : 

"It may please your Majesty: I may remember 
what Tacitus said by occasion that Tiberius was often and 
long absent from Eome. In urhe, et parva et magna ne- 
gotia imperatorem si7nul 'premiint. But saith he, hi re- 
cessUy dimissis rebus minoris momenti, summcs rerum mag- 
narum magis agituntur. This maketh me think it shall 
be no incivility to trouble your Majesty with business dur- 
ing your abode from London ; knowing that your Ma- 
jesty's meditations are the principal wheel' of your estate ; 
and being warranted by a former commandment which I 
received from you. 

'^ I do now only send your Majesty these papers inclosed, 
because I do greatly desire so far forth to preserve my 
credit with you, as thus ; — that whereas lately (perhaps 
out of too much desire, which induceth too much belief), 
I was bold to say that I thought it as easy for your Majesty 
to come out of want as to go forth of your gallery ; your 
Majesty would not take me for a dreamer or a projector.^ 
I send your Majesty therefore some grounds of my hopes. 
And for that paper which I have gathered of increase- 
ments separate, I beseech you to give me leave^ to think 
that if any of the particulars do fail, it will be rather for 
want of workmanship in those that shall deal in them 
than want of materials in the things themselves. The 

^ For future reference note the expression "principal wheel." 
Bacon also uses the expression, " Opinion is a master wheel in these 
cases," And see p. 56, 

2 Note here and for future reference the use of the word " pro- 
jector." 

3 Already have we called attention to this suave expression "give 
me leave," and wliich by the same identity of use occurs through- 
out and even in The Pilgrim's Progress by tlie itinerant Bunyau. 
In Addison, vol. iil,, p, 302, we have : "Sir (said the dervise) give 
me leave to ask your Majesty a question or two. ' ' And same vol. , 
p. 202, we have : " The limits of my paper will not give me leave to 
be particular in instances of this kind : the reader will easily remark 
them in his perusal of the poem." 



236 LIFE OF BACON. 

other paper hatli many discarding cards ; and I send it 
chiefly that your Majesty may be the less surprised by pro- 
jectors, who pretend sometimes great discoveries and in- 
ventions in things that have been propounded, and per- 
haps after a better fashion, long since. God Almighty 
preserve your Majesty.'^ (26 April, 1615, Bacon's Letters, 
vol. v., p. 130.) 

The Treasury was still in commission. As Salisbury's 
scheme had been carried too openly, this was now to be 
managed with secrecy. He, in fact, in an earnest paper 
of this period, recommending a return to true methods 
and the appointment of a Treasurer, and which the reader 
should see, says : " A second reason is, that the Commis- 
sion wants the high prerogative of king's affairs, which is 
Secrecy ; wherein first your Majesty will easily believe 
that the very divulging and noising of your wants (begun 
first by the Earl of Salisbury upon art,' and since con- 
tinued upon a kind of necessity in respect of a commission 
to many) is no small prejudice to your estate both at home 
and abroad." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., pp. 85-90.) 

The New Atlantis was, we judge, involved in some of 
these schemes for revenue, and the speech at p. 18 touch- 
ing Drowned Mineral Works was probably prepared later 
in reference thereto. As to the mentioned papers, this 
speech, and its subject matter, we quote from Bacon's 
letter to Buckingham, under date February 17, 1619, as 
follows : " I forgot not in my public charge the last Star- 
Cyhamber-day to publish his Majesty's honour, for his late 
commission for the relief of poor and suppressing vaga- 
bonds ; as also his gracious intention touching informers,'^ 
which I perceive was received with much applause. That 
of projectors I speak not of because it is not yet ripe, 
neither doth it concern the execution of any law, for 
which my speech was proper. God ever preserve and 
prosper you."^ When later matters have been called 

' Mark the emphasis placed by Bacon in his attributed writings 
upon the word " art," and upon the subjects of good and bad arts ; 
and note the use of the word throughout tlie plays, 

^ Already, and for future reference, have we called attention to 
the words " suborned informer" in one of the sonnets, 

2 And in an earlier letter to Buckingham, dated January 20th, 
1619, he says : " This day we met about the commission, the Com- 
monwealth's commission, for the poor and vagabonds, etc. We have 
put it into an excellent g»od way, and have appointed meetings once 



LIFE OP BACON". 237 

into relation this letter should be read in full. (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vii., pp. 80-81.) 

At about this time Raleigh was preparing for his great 
enterprise, his voyage to Guinea, later to be called under 
review. England's debt was now, in 1615, £7,000,000, 
and under the advice of all of the king's counsel a new 
Parliament was resolved upon, but stayed by reason of the 
great Overbury trial, which now crowded aside important 
matters of state. 

The king's favorite, Eochester, afterward Earl of 
Somerset, together with the countess, his wife, had fallen 
under grave suspicions of procuring the sending to the 
Tower and poisoning of Somerset's friend, Sir Thomas 
Overbury, in 1613. Coke had charge of the case, and 
began his investigations September 27, 1615, the day 
prior to the counsel meeting to which we have just 
alluded. Watson, an under officer of the Tower, and who 
obtained position through Somerset, was first tried, con- 
victed, and executed ; and so far Bacon had nothing to do 
with the case. But upon Watson's execution he was 
harassed by persons who sought desired confessions from 
him. These persons, Mr. Lumsden, Sir John Hollis, and 
Sir John Went worth, for this offence were prosecuted by 
the Attorney-General, Bacon, in the Star Chamber, and 
convicted and punished. 

Circumstances, now rapidly accumulating, pointed so 
sharply to the guilt of the Earl and Countess of Somerset 
as accessories before the fact to the murder, that the king, 
though with apparent reluctance, was compelled, as it 
were, to bring them to trial ; and which commenced in 
May, 1616. By reason of the physical condition of the 
countess, as well as of some Spanish matters connected 
with the case, the trial was postponed, and concerning 
which, in his charge. Bacon says : " The time also of this 
justice hath had his' true motions. The time until the 

in 14 days, because it shall not be aslack." (Works, vol. iii., p. 124.) 
^ Note throughout this use of the word " his." Promus, 841. So 
gyve autliors their due as you gyve tyme his due Miiich is to dis- 
cover truth. In Sonnet 74 we have : " The earth can have but earth, 
■ which is his due." In Hamlet, Act i., sc. 8, p. 220, we have : 
" Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act." 
In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 172, we have : 



238 LIFE OF BACON". 

lady's deliverance was due unto honour, Christianity, and 
humanity, in respect of her great belly.' The time since 
was due to another kind of deliverance too ; which was 
that some causes of state which were in the womb might 
likewise be brought forth, not for matter of justice but 
for reason of state. Likewise this last procrastination of 
days had the like weighty grounds and causes." (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. v., p. 303.) 

There was more involved in this case than the mere 
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and Bacon at first 
sought with all his subtlety and genius, we think, to un- 
earth it. To these efforts, doubtless, it was that Yeherton 
alludes in a friendly letter of warning to Bacon more than 
a year later, and wherein he says that " it is too common 
in every man's mouth in court, that your greatness shall 
be abated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor to 
some, so shall theirs be to you." (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
vi., p. 248.) 

The indiscretion of Coke at the very opening of this 
case put all upon their guard, and concerning which Mr. 
Spedding says : " On the 27th of November he had in- 
formed the public from the Bench in open Court that 
* knowing as much as he knew, if this plot had not been 
found out, neither court, city, nor many particular houses 
had escaped the malice of that wicked crew.' " 

Mr. Spedding also says : " On the 4th of December he 

" Duke. This weak impress of love is as a figure 
Trenched in ice ; which with an hour's heat 
Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form." 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 174, we have : " If you will go with 
us, you must go against wind and tide ; the which, I perceive, is 
against your opinion : you must also own Religion in his rags, as 
well as when in his silver slippers ; and stand by him, too, when 
bound in irons, as well as when he walketh the streets with ap- 
plause." Compare the use of the word "ice" just above with the 
following. Bacon says : " For high treason (I tell you) is not written 
in ice ; that when the body relenleth, the impression goeth away." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 154.) 

^ Note, and particularly in the Defoe and Addison literature, this 
expression " great belly." Also the expressions " big with child," 
" brought to bed," etc. In Addison, vol iii., p. 469, we have: 
" Her whisper can make an innocent young women big with ciiild, 
or fill an healthful young fellow with distempers that are not to be 
named." And in Midsummer Night's Drc&ra, Act ii., sc. 1, we have 
the expression " And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind." 



LIFE OF BACON. 239 

made that other announcement from the Bench (which 
I have also mentioned) of a discovery that made ' our 
deliverance as great as any that happened to the children 
of Israel ;' adding (it is said) an obscure hint that he 
knew something about the death of 'that sweet Prince 
Henry.' " (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., pp. 229, 339.) 

In the previous July Somerset had obtained the king's 
signature to a general pardon, but it had been stopped at 
the seal, the Chancellor refusing to pass it, though re- 
quested by the king, unless he might have a pardon him- 
self for doing it, and there it stuck. In his charge of 
Somerset Bacon, among other things, made use of these 
words: "For impoisonment, I am sorry it should be 
heard of in this kingdom : it is not nostri generis nee 
sanguinis : it is an Italian crime, fit for the court of 
Rome, where that person that intoxicateth the Kings of 
the earth with his cup of poison in heretical doctrine, is 
many times really and materially intoxicated and impoi- 
soned himself.'" (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 309, and 
see, p. 320, what he says touching Northampton's let- 
ters.) 

The countess had been twice married. In 1606, on 
Twelfth Night, she, as Lady Francis Howard, daughter 
of the Earl of Suffolk, at the age of thirteen, was, under a 
brilliant court mask, married to Robert Devereaux, third 
Earl of Essex, and son of Elizabeth's unfortunate favor- 
ite, and being then a boy of but fourteen years. Upon 
coming to the throne, James at once showed favors to the 
families of Devereaux and Howard, who had suffered for 
their attachment to his cause. He restored the young 
earl to his blood and dignity, and he conferred the titles of 
Suffolk and Northampton on two brothers of the House of 
Suffolk. Upon the king's arrival in London young Essex 
was made a sharer in the studies and amusements of 
Prince Henry, the king's eldest son. Upon the marriage 
of young Essex, and before the consummation of the 
nuptial bed, and for some reason not apparent, unless we 
indulge a suspicion, he was sent abroad to spend some 
time in travel. After an absence of four years he returned 
to find his countess enamored of Somerset, at that time 

' Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, was present and heard the 
charges in these cases, let it be remembered, and which should be 
read in full. 



240 LIFE OF BACON. 

Viscount Rochester. The marriage relations were refused 
with Essex, whereupon, through the open and avowed 
influence of James, a divorce was obtained ; and under a 
like mask and pomp she was, in December, 1613, married 
to Somerset, though against the serious protestations of 
Overbury, to whom Somerset was in the habit of com- 
municating his secrets, as well personal as those of state, 
and he now feared their disclosure. Overbury disliked 
the Howards, and regarded the countess but as an aban- 
doned and lascivious woman. Upon communication of 
Overbury 's sentiments to her, she is said to have resolved 
upon revenge against him, enlisting Somerset and her 
relative, the Earl of Northampton, in her cause. (See 
Knight, vol. iii., pp. 293-300.) Tliis, I say, is the theory, 
but we think the matter lay somewhat deeper. 

Northampton is said to have desired the restoration of 
the Koman faith. He toward the end of Elizabeth's reign 
attached himself first to Essex and afterward to Salis- 
bury, and took part with Salisbur}? in the secret corre- 
spondence with James before his coming to the English 
throne. He is said to have been one of the few who, in 
consideration of the services he was able to render, was 
authorized by the authorities of the Roman Church to 
pretend Protestantism during the first years of James' 
reign. See these facts in the Britannica article on North- 
ampton. Somerset was absorbed in Northampton's influ- 
ence, and so favored a close alliance with Spain. But in 
1614, and so previous to these trials, Northampton died. 

While Overbury was in the Tower it was that the men- 
tioned divorce proceedings began, and on pretence that 
with the countess he, Essex, was incapable of conjugal 
duties. Under a mask a young virgin was substituted, 
it is said, to undergo a legal inspection by a jury of 
matrons. Under such proceedings, and sustained by the 
king, a sentence of divorce was pronounced ; and to pre- 
vent loss of rank to the lady by her now marriage with 
Rochester, the king conferred upon him the title of Earl 
of Somerset, and in 1614 he was made Lord Chamberlain. 
To Archbishop Abbott, who dared to oppose tlie disgrace- 
ful proceedings, the king said : " The least thankfulness 
tliat you that are so far my creature can use towards me 
is to reverence and follow my judgment and not to con- 
tradict it.'' 



LIFE OF BACON. ^41 

Among those implicated in the murder was Sir Thomas 
Munson, a pensioner of Spain, who had been employed in 
these affairs of Somerset and Northampton. He was by 
Coke brooght to the bar and arraigned, December 4th, 
1615. To Coke's indiscreet statement, made at the time, 
we have already called attention. The king interposed, 
and the matter was postponed until October, 1616, when 
he was released from the Tower, and on February 12th, 
1616-17, he received the king's pardon. A little earlier, 
and at about the end of December, there was talk abroad 
as to a noted anonymous letter from Bacon to Coke con- 
cerning these affairs, and which has become known as 
Bacon's expostulatory letter to Coke. Mr. Sped ding 
thinks the letter not Bacon's. In this we differ. From 
the letter we quote : 

" In your last, which might have been your best, piece 
of service to the state, affectioned to follow that old rule 
which gives justice leaden heels and iron hands, you used 
too many delays, till the delinquents' hands were loosed 
and yours bound ; in that work you seemed another 
Fabius, where the humour of Marcellus would have done 
better : what need you have sought more evidence than 
enough ? AVhilst you pretended the finding out of more, 
missing your aim, you discredited what you had found. 
This best judgments think : though you never used such 
speeches as are fathered upon you, yet you might vmll 
have done it, and but rightly. For this crime was second 
to none, but the powder-plot : that would have blown up 
all at a blow, a merciful cruelty ; this would have done 
the same by degrees, a lingering but a sure way ; one 
mJght by one be called out, till all opposers had been re- 
moved. 

" Besides, that other plot was scandalous to Rome, mak- 
ing Popery odious in the sight of the whole world ; this 
hath been scandalous to the truth of the whole gospel ; and 
since the first nullity to this instant, when justice hath her 
hands bound, the devil could not have invented a more mis- 
chieYOUs practice to our state and church than this, hath 
been, is and is like to be. Grod avert the evil. 

" But herein you committed another fault : that as 
you were too open in your proceedings, and so taught 
them thereby to defend themselves ; so you gave them 
time to undermine justice, and to work upon all advan- 



242 LIFE OF BACOK. 

tages, both of affections, and humour, and opportunities 
and jjreach of friendship ; which they have so well fol- 
lowed sparing neither pains nor costs, that it almost seems 
a higher offence in you to have done so much indeed, than 
that you have done no more : you stop the confessions and 
accusations of some, who, perhaps, had they been suffered, 
would have spoken enough to have removed some stum- 
bling blocks out of your way ; and that you did not this in 
the favour of any one, but of I know not what present 
unadvised humour, supposing enough behind to discover 
all ; which fell not out so. However, as the Apostle says 
in another case, you ' went not right to the truth ;' and 
therefore, though you were to be commended for what 
you did, yet you were to be reprehended for many circum- 
stances in the doing ; and doubtless God hath an eye in 
this cross to your negligence and the briers are left to be 
pricks in your sides and thorns in your eyes." 

Mr. Spedding gives but a j)ortion of this paper. It is 
given in fall, \Vorks, vol. ii., pp. 485-88, from which we 
have taken this quotation. The quoted portion may be 
found in Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 124. It is indeed an 
important paper. It bears directly upon Bacon's troubles, 
and should be read. 

We are of the opinion that this paper was sent by Bacon 
to Coke, and that he, Coke, himself gave it what publicity 
i^had, and for the advantage it would now yield him.' He 
was at this time suspended from his high office, and. 
doubtless, through the influence of this, to use his own 
words, " wicked crew," and this the mentioned paper 
informs him. Bacon doubtless thought Coke's egotism 
would not permit him to show the paper, it being so 
truthful an anatomy of himself in points not here quoted. 
Bacon, as well as other men, must be permitted to have 
acid, and he evidently thought this a proper occasion to 

^ Coke had even prior to his removal from office sought to kiss the 
king's hands, concerning wliicli Buckingham, in a letter to Bacon, 
dated October 3d, 1616, touching Coke's removal, among other things, 
says : " Thirdly, for that my lord Coke hath sought means to kiss 
his Majesty's hands and withal to acquaint him with some things of 
great importance to his service, he holdeth it not fit to admit him to 
his presence before these points be determined, because that would 
be a grant of his pardon before he had his trial." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vi., p. 79.) 



LIFE OF BACON". 243 

use it, and to show Coke that learning may not only be a 
lark to soar, but a hawk to strike. 

Touching the Overbury trial, Knight, in his History of 
England, vol. iii., p. 302, says : " The mysteries which 
were involved in the death of Overbury, whose murder 
can scarcely be attributed solely to the revenge of Lady 
Somerset ; the fearful secrets which Somerset might have 
revealed had he not been assured of the king's pardon, 
and of the rewards which he afterwards received— are 
conjectured to be of a nature that had better be buried 
with the ' carrion' to which they belong. That Somerset 
was guilty of being accessory to the murder of Overbury 
is very little to be doubted. That the murder was for the 
concealment of some terrible secret can as little be ques- 
tioned. How far James was implicated in these dark 
aifairs may be better judged from a careful perusal of 
the great body of evidence collected by Mr. Amos than by 
any brief mention in this or any other historical abstract." 

The circumstances preparatory to this trial were in 
brief as follows : one George More, a kind of self appointed 
lieutenant of the Tower, though, in fact, acting under the 
authority of the king, as will appear from the king's 
letters, informed Somerset that he must the next day go 
to his trial, whereupon Somerset absolutely refused, and 
said that the king had assured him he should not come to 
any trial, and that the king dare not bring him to trial. 
Upon this More, late at night, seeks an audience with the 
king. What followed, as well as the king's letters con- 
nected therewith, will appear in Knight's History of Eng- 
land, pp. 301-308. 

While Bacon was cognizant of the fact that there were 
involved in this trial secrets concerning which the king, 
as to himself, feared disclosure, it is by no means certain 
that he knew their true inwardness at this time, and it is 
probable that he did not. There w^ere, we judge, other 
points in the case upon which Bacon's eye was more 
closely centred. This king's methods were of a treacher- 
ous, covert, and secret nature, better seen after than dur- 
ing the transit of events. Even to this day the true 
inwardness of the case is not known. Bacon's attention 
during these years was too largely absorbed in literary and 
other work for him to have attended very closely to the 
details of the king's private methods. The countess made 



244 LIFE OF BACON. 

confession to the poisoning, and both she and the earl 
were found guilty. The countess was immediately par- 
doned and the earl some time later. Upon this nobleman, 
James, in 1609, conferred Ealeigh's estate, and, it is said, 
upon Salisbury's advice, Raleigh having been convicted 
in 1603. 

Bacon, in a letter to the king in this cause, makes use 
of the word '' providence" in the same sense claimed in 
earlier pages, thus : " Your Majesty hath put me upon a 
work of providence in this great cause,'" etc. 

It also has the following : " For certainly there may be 
an evidence so balanced, as it may have sufficient matter for 
the conscience of the peers to convict him, and yet leave 
sufficient matter i7i the conscience of the king^ upon the 
same evidence to pardon his life ; because the peers are 
astringed by necessity either to acquit or condemn ; but 
grace is free ; and for my part, I think the evidence in 
this present case will be of such a nature." (Works, vol. 
ii., p. 329.) 

William Shakespeare died near the date of this letter, 
and on April 23d, 1616, while this letter was written on 
the 28th, five days later. Let it be investigated as to 
whether facts in this case be found woven into some later 
play. 

The king was now somewhat beneath the hatchet. 
Coke's mining he soon stayed, however, by removing him 
from office. In June, 1616, upon charges wliich our 
space will not permit us here to elaborate, Coke was called 
before the counsel and suspended from both counsel- table 
and bench, and ordered to make correction of his reports 
as to claimed extravagant opinions. The task not being 
performed to the king's satisfaction, he was in November 
dismissed from office, though done, as one of his cotem- 
poraries says, " as if he meant to hang him with a silken 
halter." Thus matters stood when Coke received the 
mentioned expostulatory letter from Bacon, who in it 
tells him that his trouble is all due to his own fault and 
lack of discretion. As the proceedings for Coke's removal 
Avent, by reason of Bacon's office, somewhat under his 
eye, it seemed, and doubtless in part was so. Bacon's 
triumph over him. Till now Coke had led the legal race, 

' We are here reminded of the words ia Hamlet, " the play's the 
thing wherein to catch the conscience of the king." 



LIFE OF BACON. 245 

and sneered ever at Bacon as a mere pretender to law, and 
wliose enthusiasm for accomplishments and polite learn- 
ing he despised utterly. The effect produced upon Coke, 
who regarded himself as the unique embodiment of Eng- 
lish law, may readily be imagined, and when later his 
opportunity came for retaliation he put it to full use. 

From this moment Bacon was being drawn sharply 
beneath conflicting influences and such as soon became 
relentless cords. The king, since the dissolution of his 
last Parliament, to escape financial and other difficulties, 
had sought a close alliance with Spain. Between the 
years 1615 and 1616 the new favorite, George Villiers, 
afterward Duke of Buckingham, was being moved rapidly 
to preferment. The practices under Somerset had become 
known to Bacon, and hence his carefully prepared letter 
of advice to Villiers upon assuming his new relations. 

Early in 1615 and during the dangerous illness of Lord 
Chancellor EUesmere, Bacon by a carefully prepared letter 
to the king proposed himself as Chancellor, should that 
office fall vacant, and reminding him of his father's con- 
nection with it in the former reign. (Works, vol. iii., p. 
10.) 

Eef erring in this letter to Somerset's methods, he says : 
** Upon this heavy accident,^ 1 pray your majesty in all 
humbleness and sincerity, to give me leave to use a few 
words. I must never forget, when I moved your majesty 

^ Note throughout this use of the word "heavy," as " heavy acci- 
dent," "heavy judgment," "heavy news." And in the plays it 
will be found variously woven. In Much Ado About Nothing, Act 
iii., sc. 2. p. 197, we have : 

'* D. Pedro. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him : 
Conclude, conclude, he is in love." 

In Macbeth, Act. i., sc. 3, p. 251, we have : 

" Ang. Who was the thane lives yet ; 
But under heavy judgment bears that life 
Which he deserves to lose." 

In Hamlet, Act, iv., sc. 1, p. 315, we have : 

" King. O heavy deed !" 

In Othello, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 451, we have : 

" Des. O, heavy ignorance !" 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 259, we have the expression "with 
many a heavy cogitation." 



246 LIFE OF BACO:^^. 

for the Attorney's place, it was yonr own sole act ; more 
than that, Somerset, vvlien he knew your majesty had re- 
solved it, thrust himself into the business for a fee. And 
therefore I have no reason to pray to saints. 

" I shall now again make oblation to your majesty, first 
of my heart, then, of my service, thirdly, of my place of 
attorney which I think is honestly worth £0000 per annum, 
and, fourthly, of my place of the Star Chamber, which is 
worth £1600 per annum ; and with the favour and coun-* 
tenance of a chancellor, much more." 

Through Villiers the place was within three days as- 
sured to him. The king's methods for revenue through 
Somerset had not worked upon Bacon ; through Villiers 
they did, though doubtless Bacon regarded these as but 
gifts to the king in his now great need. 

Villiers, in other words, the king, was not only to re- 
ceive henceforth Bacon's yearly income of £1600 from the 
Star Chamber, but likewise his office to dispose of else- 
where, as no one from this time forward was permitted to 
hold footing in the government of James that did not in 
some way pay tribute to Buckingham, the screen. 

Ellesmere having recovered, the king gave Bacon the 
option either to be made privy counsellor or the assurance 
of succeeding the Chancellor. He chose the first position 
for reasons which, in a letter to Villiers June 3d, he 
states thus : 

"Sir : The king giveth me a noble' choice, and you 
are the man my heart ever told me you were. Ambition 
would draw me to the latter part of the choice ; but in 
respect to my hearty wishes that my lord chancellor may 
live long, and the small hopes I have, that I shall live 
long myself, and above all, because I see his majesty's 
service daily and instantly bleedeth ; towards which I 

^ Observe particularly in Addison and throughout the plays the 
use of Bacon's distinguishing word " noble." From Addison, vol. 
iii., p. 428. we quote as follows : " Allegories when well chosen, are 
like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything 
about them clear and beauiif ul. A noble metaphor, when it is placed 
to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre 
through a whole sentence : these different kinds of allusion are but 
so many different manners of similitude, and, that they may please 
the imagination, the likeness ought to be very exact, or very agree- 
able, as we love to see a picture where the resemblance is just, or 
the posture and air graceful." 



LIFE OF BACOi^". 247 

persuade myself (vainly, perhaps, but yet in mine own 
thoughts firmly and constantly) that I shall give, when 
I am at the table, some effectual furtherance (as a poor 
thread of the labyrinth, which hath no other virtue but a 
united continuance, without interruption or distraction), 
I do accept of the former, to be counsellor for the present, 
and give over^ pleading at bar ; let the other matter rest 
upon my proof and his majesty's pleasure, and the acci- 
dents of time. For to speak plainly I would be loth that 
my lord chancellor, to whom I owe most after the king 
and yourself, should be locked to his successor for any 
advancement or gracing'' of me. So I remain," etc. 
(Works, vol. iii., p. 49.) 

Bacon took his position at the council-table June 9th, 
1616, and soon after presented the king with his long- 
meditated scheme for legal reform in a paper entitled 
" A Proposition to his Majesty Touching the Compiling 
and Amendment of the Laws of England." (Works, 
vol. ii., pp. 229-33, or Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., pp. 
61-70.) This is indeed a masterly piece of work. The 
subject had been prominent in his thoughts since his first 
appearance in Parliament in the former reign. By the use 
of such words as " sleeping laws" and ** snaring laws" — 
and see also ch. 3, Book 8 of the De Augmentis — we are 
reminded of the play of " Measure for Measure," and 
which first appeared in the Great First Folio of 1623. 

The doings of this year we have somewhat recounted. 
The Overbury trial is over, and by the pardon of Munson, 
in February, 1616-7, the king was somewhat relieved, 
and was now preparing for an absence to his native Scot- 
land, having first issued a proclamation ordering all of 
the gentry of London into the country. On March 14th, 
accompanied by Buckingham, he quitted England. Pre- 
viously, however, and on the 5th of the month, Ellesmere, 
by reason of health, age, and press of business, resigned 
his position, (had the king method in this ?) and two days 

' To this expression " give over" we have already called attention. 

' As to this use of the word " grace," we, from As You Like It, 
Act v., sc. 2, p. 241, quote the following : " Know of me, then (for 
now I speak to some purpose), that I know you are a gentleman of 
good conceit : I speak not this, that you should bear a good opinion 
of my knowledge, insomuch, I say, I know you are ; neither do I 
labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a 
belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me." 



248 LIFE OF BACOX. 

thereafter, and on Marcli 7th, 1617, the great seal was 
conferred upon Sir Francis Bacon, with the title of Lord 
Keeper of the Great Seal of England, that of Chancellor 
being added in the following January. Thus Bacon, at the 
age of fifty. seven, reached the height of his ambition in 
civil affairs. He thus became the first law officer of the 
kingdom, the accredited adviser of the king, and on inti- 
mate terms with his great favorite, Villiers, who had in 
the previous January been created Earl of Buckingham. 

Bacon had ever great motives for seeking position ; for 
uniting his will with the royal will.' He sought not 
merely to shape the policy of England, but of Europe. 
Nay, more ; in Aph. 129, Book 1 of the Xovum Organum 
he says : " It will, perhaps, be as well to distinguish three 
species and degrees of ambition. First that of men who 
are anxious to enlarge their own power in their country, 
which is a vulgar and degenerate kind : next, that of men 
who strive to enlarge the power and empire of their 
country over mankind, which is more dignified but not 
less covetous ; but if one were to endeavour to renew and 
enlarge the power and empire of mankind in general over 
the universe, such ambition (if it may be so termed) is 
both more sound and more noble than the other two. 
Now the empire of man over things is founded on the arts 
and sciences alone, for nature is only to be commanded 
by obeying her." 

As he had already recommended to the king legal re- 
form, and in its very roots and foundations, so now at his 
entrance upon this great office — the king's right arm — he 
sought to shape or give direction to what he regarded as 
desirable courses to be pursued not only in it, but in all 
beneath it. This effort at shaping courses must be taken 
into account and be looked at with care, if we would have 
a true estimate of Lord Bacon's character. His motives 
and ends must in a measure be studied by looking some- 
what beneath the surface. 

And so the four charges which he mentions as having 
been given him by the king upon his receiving the seal 
were evidently products of his own mind and pen. See 
his speech in taking his place in Chancery. (Works, 
vol. ii., p. 471.) This finding of his pen in other men's 

1 See Sonnets 135 and 136, p. 205. 



LIFE OF BACO^. 249 

work has puzzled many as to certain literary products dur- 
ing his period. 

His duties as Lord Keeper began in May, when with 
mucli ceremony he rode in state to Westminster, where, 
being seated, he addressed the bar and assembled specta- 
tors by dilating generally upon the mentioned charges 
given him by the king upon receiving the seal, and stating 
the manner in which he purposed to execute the trust. 
As to the third admonition, concerning the speed of busi- 
ness, he, among other things, -says : " I shall by the grace 
of God, as far as God will give me strength add the after- 
noon to the forenoon, and some fourth night of the vaca- 
tion to the term, for the expediting and clearing the causes 
of the court ; only the depth of the three long vacations 
I would reserve in some measure free from business of 
state, and for studies, arts, and sciences, to which in my 
own nature I am most inclined." 

And thus was the empire of knowledge ever uppermost 
in this man's thoughts, and to advance which even the 
ceremonies of this occasion were doubtless thought by him to 
lend aid. He, in fact, in his essay entitled " Of Vainglory" 
says : " In fame of learning the flight will be slow without 
some feathers^ of ostentation." Bacon sought position 
for the vantage ground which it would yield him in 
initiating, resting, and seating his great philosoj)hic em- 
pire in the minds of men ; and to which all else was made 

^ Bacon made the word " feather" a distinctive figure of speech, 
and it may be often found in this literature, and particularly in the 
plays. Promus, 1217a. I do as birds do for I lly out of my 
feathers." Promus, 1217. From this your first flight, etc. In Love's 
Labttur's Lost, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 407, we have : 

" Prin. What plume of feathers is he that indicted this letter ?" 

In Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 258, we have : 

"Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent 
your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no 
feather." 

And in Hamlet, Act iii,, sc. 2, p. 293, we have : 

" Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my 
fortunes turn Turk with me), with two Provincial roses on my rac'd 
shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir ?" Much material 
of this kind might be introduced did space permit. In Addison, 
vol. iv., p. 214, we have : " I shall appear at the next masquerade, 
dressed up in my feathers and plumage like an Indian prince, that 
the quality may see how pretty they will look in their traveling 
habits." (See vol. ii., p. ol2, and Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 388.) 



250 LIFE OF BACON. 

subservient. He it was who said : " I have raised up a 
light in the obscurity of philosophy which will be seen 
centuries when I am dead.'^ 

An account of this first day's business in court he by 
letter communicated to Buckingham, then with the king 
at Edinburgh, saying : " Yesterday I took my place in 
chancery, which I hold only from the king's grace and 
favour, and your friendship. There was much ado' 
and a great deal of world. But this matter of pomp, 
which is heaven to some men, is hell to me, or purgatory 
at least. It is true I was glad to see that the king's 
choice was so generally approved, and that I had so much 
interest in men's good wills and good opinions, because it 
maketh me the fitter instrument to do my master's ser- 
vice and my friend's also." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 
194.) 

He was, however, scarcely warm in his seat before cir- 
cumstances arose which called for opinions and actions 
likely to at once involve him in great difficulties with the 
king, and soon with both the king and Buckingham. As 
remarked, the king was now seeking a close alliance with 
Spain. Before his departure into Scotland he had ap- 
pointed commissioners to manage a marriage treaty be- 
tween his son. Prince Charles, and the Infanta of Spain. 
Bacon, ever jealous for the Eeformed faith, and remember- 
ing, doubtless, the days of Mary Tudor and later those of 
Philip, her husband, advised the king against proceeding 
with the treaty, and set forth the difficulties that had 
already been experienced from disunited counsel. (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vi., p. 170.) The step was against the de- 
cided sentiment of the people, as the king well knew, Tind 
his council did not purpose to have it go forward, though 
they dare not openly oppose it ; nor did they know well 
how to avert it, if it was really intended by Spain, which 
some of them much doubted. Bacon had as early as 
March 23d, concerning the instructions to be given to Sir 
John Digby, who had the matter in charge, recommended 
that the two countries should take into account in this 
marriage treaty the subject of a war against the Turks. 
He says : " Also, that it may be a beginning and seed 

' This expression " much ado" is found in every phase of these 
writings. And in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 274, we have : "I 
had much ado to forbear crying out, undone !" And see p. 319. 



LIFE OF BACON-. 251 

(for the like actions before have had less beginnings) of a 
holy war against the Turk,^ whereunto it seems the events 
of time doth invite Christian kings, in respect of the great 
corruption and relaxation of discipline of war in that em- 
pire ; and much more in respect of the utter ruin and 
enervation of the Grand Signor's navy and forces by sea ; 
which openeth a way (without congregating vast armies 
by land) to suffocate and starve Constantinople, and 
thereby to put those provinces into mutiny and insurrec- 
tion." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 158.) 

And what did Overbury really know ? The question of 
this marriage alliance was first moved by Spain imme- 
diately after the treaty of peace with England in August, 
1604, and upon condition that James' eldest son, Prince 
Henry, then a little boy, should not only be brought up a 
Catholic, but sent to Madrid for his education. What a 
proposition to a Protestant king ! Tlie terms were not, 
of course, accepted, and the Gunpowder Plot followed in 
October. After the dissolution of Parliament, in 1610, 
it was moved by James himself, and with the view, it is 
said, of relieving his exchequer by the marriage portion. 
As it could be accomplished only upon the conditions 
mentioned, it was again broken off. No better results 
having been obtained from his next Parliament, James 
began to show his intentions, and at the end of 1614 
Digby was sent to Madrid to manage the negotiation ; and 
in March, 1615, Spanish proposals were embodied iif a 
series of articles as a basis of negotiation. At this junc- 
ture Mr. Spedding says : '* Somerset, in whom, with Sir 
Eobert Cotton as an ally, Gondomar fancied he had found 
the very instrument he wanted for the conversion of Eng- 
land, was arrested on a charge of complicity in the murder 
of Overbury, and disappeared from the stage, not to appear 
again." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 146.) 

Aside from the negotiations going forward through 
Digby, it seems that there was a side issue through Somer- 

' This was oue of Bacon's life aims, as may be seen not merely in 
a later paper entitled The Holy War, but in the Serious Reflections 
of Robinson Crusoe. "We think he may have moved it at this time, 
however, in order to break relations as to this marriage treaty. In 
every phase of his doings Bacon will be found to have stood like an 
oak, and even in subtlety, in support of the Reformed faith. He 
was more quickly aroused at this point than at any other, as we 
shall see. 



252 LIFE OF BACON". 

set, and known to the king. Digby received messages 
showing that Somerset was having some underhand deal- 
ing in the matter with the Spanish ambassador, and in 
this way the matter was brought to light. Overbury 
throngh Somerset was fully cognizant of the inwardness 
of this business. (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., pp. 232, 
2G2-69, 312.) 

The forces here at work against England's Protestant- 
ism were met, wo think, by Bacon's greatest subtlety, and 
as well toward the king as others.^ 

Coke now during the king's absence submissively ap- 
plied himself to Secretary Win wood to be restored to favor. 
Previously he had rejected with scorn, but now favored, a 
proposed marriage alliance between his daughter Frances 
and Buckingham's brother. Sir John Villiers. Win wood 
favored the alliance, but Coke's wife. Lady Hatton, and 
upon whom the young lady's fortune chiefly depended, 
most bitterly opposed it. But, again, Buckingham's 
mother, Lady Compton, approved it, and a furious quarrel 
ensued. Lady Hatton took the daughter, who is said to 
have been little more than a child, into the country. 
Coke with his son. Fighting Clem, as he was called, and 
with ten or twelve servants pursued her with a warrant 
from Secretary Winwood, Bacon having refused it. She 
was found ; the door of the residence was forced violently 
open, and the young lady into Coke's carriage. Lady 
Hatton rushed now to the Lord Keeper Bacon for help, 
and from a brief account of the affair in Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vi., p. 225, we quote as follows : " After an overturn 
by the way ' at last to my Lord Keeper's they came, but 
could not have instant access to him, for that his people 
told them he v^as laid at rest, being not well. Then my 
La. Hatton desired she might be in the next room where 
my Lord lay, that she might be the first that [should] speak 
with him after he was stirring. The door-keeper fulfilled 
her desire, and in the mean time gave her a chair to rest 
herself in, and there left her alone : but not long after, 
she rose up and bounced against my Lord Keeper's door, 
and waked him and affrighted him, that he called his 
men to him ; and the}^ opening the door, she thrust in 

' And hence we need not wonder at the remark in liis expostulatory 
letter to Coke that the success of the Gunpowder Plot would have 
been but a " merciful cruelty." 



LIFE OF BACON". 253 

with them, and desired his Lp. to pardon her boldness, 
but she was like a cow that had lost her calf, and so justi- 
fied [herself] and pacified my Lord's anger, and got his 
warrant and my Lo. Treasurer's warrant and others of the 
Council to fetch her daughter from the father and bring 
them both to the Council.' " 

Both parties were by the court compelled to keep the 
peace, and the young lady was for the present taken from 
the raging parents. Bacon, it seems, had at first supposed 
the matter to be but an affair between Coke and Win- 
wood, and so at once, July 12th, wrote to Buckingham 
and entreated him to put an end to the affair. He also 
wrote the king on the 25th. (Works, yoI. iii., pp. 77, 78.) 

Coke in the mean time was ordered by the Council be- 
fore the Star Chamber " for riot and force," to " be heard 
and sentenced as justice should appertain." Neither 
Bacon nor the Council apparently to this time had a 
doubt but that they were doing what the king would 
approve. Buckingham for a time remained silent, his 
silence being followed by several haughty and bitter let- 
ters. Bacon in the mean time had not, so far as appears, 
done aught but duty, either as friend, counsellor, or 
judge ; yet he was now upon the very edge not merely of 
losing his high office, but he knew not what. He seems 
to have been amazed to find that both the king and Buck- 
ingham were for the match, aiid that th.e proceedings of 
the Council were condemned as gross misconduct. In 
one of Buckingham's letters it appears that the king even 
threatened to put " some public exemplary mark" upon 
Bacon, and Buckingham is said to have gone so far as to 
accuse Bacon with having been unfaithful to Essex, to 
Somerset — for whom he never professed friendship — and 
now to himself. Coke had seen the king during his ab- 
sence, and went to meet him upon his return. Had the 
king seen the mentioned expostulatory letter ? The 
transaction seems, for some reason not apparent, to have 
been loaded with a severity entirely inadequate and un- 
necessary, and to have terminated in a kind of submission 
on Bacon's part bordering somewhat upon servility. But 
it must be remembered that his own great purposes were 
not yet accomplished, and he was ever more attentive to 
his ends than to his mere will. Again, he saw that his 
country, if ever, now needed his services. The matter 



254 LIFE OF BACON". 

ended in the gracing of Coke. This Bacon had feared, 
though he claims to have feared it only by reason of again 
restoring discord in council. Coke, on September 28th, 
was restored to the council-table, and the daughter on the 
29th was married to the brother of the great favorite, a 
man whom she detested, whom she loathed. The result 
was the abandonment of the husband and the fall of the 
wife. 

Coke and Bacon had now both been awed, and as in- 
tended, doubtless, left somewhat beneath the whips of 
power. Bacon's talent was wanted, but it was wanted 
only in the line of the king's own purposes, Bucking- 
ham, the screen, now became troublesome to Bacon in 
many ways, and he seems able to retain his office only by 
further tribute, as will appear from the following New 
Year's letter by Bacon to Buckingham in 1618 : 

'' My very good Lord : Sir George Chaworth and I 
am agreed, so that now I shall retain the grace of my 
place, and yet be rewarded. The King hath no ill bar- 
gain ; for, he hath four times as much as he was offered 
by Sir George, of increase ; and yet 1 take upon me to 
content my servants, and to content him. Nevertheless, 
I shall think myself pleasured by his majesty, and do 
acknowledge, that your lordship hath dealt very honourably 
and nobly with me." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 286.) 

Many of these gracious sayings of Bacon will be found 
to be subtle shots at the quick of conscience of those deal- 
ing unjustly by him. Hamlet's words to Polonius seem 
to represent his methods wherein he says : " Use every 
man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping ! Use 
them after your own honour and dignity : the less they 
deserve, the more merit is in your bounty." 

Thinking, perhaps, to have Bacon now more to his pur- 
poses, the king, and by reason of the mentioned tribute, 
early in January conferred upon him the additional office 
of Chancellor, and in July, and as part of the same ar- 
rangement, the honorary title of Baron Verulem. Bacon 
was now at work with all diligence upon matters concern- 
ing the king's revenue and retrenching of the expenses of 
the kingdom. It was hoped that Raleigh's voyage would 
add something to the Exchequer. He sailed from Ply- 
mouth June 12th, 1617. The voyage proved a failure, 



LIFE OF BACOJ^. 255 

and by reason of certain Spanish charges he, on October 
23d, 1618, received notice to prepare for death. 

Daring the summer of this year the revolt broke out in 
Bohemia, and which was the commencement of the Thirty 
Years' War. Bacon favored the war with Spain for its 
recovery, but the king opposed it. Though charges of 
corruption in office were the occasion, still the subtle 
cause of Bacon's overthrow took deeper its roots, as we 
shall see^ and he was as truly a sacrifice to Spain, or to 
Spanish influence, as was Raleigh. 

In the following year, 1619, Buckingham was raised by 
the king to the office of Lord High Admiral of England, 
and was pursuing courses which Bacon thought dangerous, 
and particularly to the Reformed faith. In his letter of 
advice to him, upon his becoming the king's favorite, 
Bacon said : " Take heed, I beseech you, that you be not an 
instrument to countenance the Roman Catholics. I can- 
not flatter, the world believes that some near in blood to 
you are too much of that persuasion ; you must use them 
with fit respects, according to the bonds of nature ; but 
you are of kin, and so a friend to their persons, not to 
their errors." (Works, vol. ii., p. 377.) 

This year first appeared the A. D. B. Mask. It was 
dedicated to Buckingham in words of fulsome uncertainty, 
and the work, as we view it, contains covert warnings as 
to courses now being pursued by him, and with the evident 
design to stay those courses. Buckingham at first pre- 
tended to be with the popular movement, but before the 
summer of 1620 had ended he was found in the closest 
alliance with Gondomar, and was recklessly pursuing, as 
the events will show, the already mentioned Spanish mar- 
riage alliance. He had himself in the previous year been 
married to the daughter of the Earl of Rutland, a lady 
known to be at heart a Roman Catholic, and for a time 
both his and the king's influence went wholly in that 
direction, and to the great fear and discomfiture of a large 
portion of the English people. 

James at once denied his son-in-law's title as King of 
Bohemia, and forbade him to be prayed for as such in the 
churches. Knight, in his History of England, vol. iii., 
p. 313, says : 

" The Elector Palatine, after some hesitation, accepted 
the dangerous promotion, and was crowned at Prague, in 



256 LIFE OF BACON". 

Nov. 1619. The resolve was the signal for a general array 
of hostile forces throughout Europe. The great battle of 
Protestantism and Catholicism appeared once more likely 
to be fought out. Had Elizabeth been alive she would 
have thrown all her force into the conflict. James at first 
refused to give any assistance to his son-in-law. The 
Protestants of England were aroused to an enthusiasm 
which had been repressed for years. They saw the armies 
of Austria and Spain gathering to snatch the crown from 
the elective King of Bohemia, and to invade the Palati- 
nate. They saw many of the Protestant princes forming a 
union for his defence. Volunteers were ready to go forth 
from England, full of zeal for the support of the elector. 
James was professing an ardent desire to Protestant depu- 
ties to assist his son-in-law ; and at the same time vo wing- 
to the Spanish ambassador tliat the alliance with his 
Catholic majesty, which was to be cemented by the mar- 
riage of Prince Charles to the Infanta, was the great de- 
sire of his heart. At length the Catholic powers entered 
the Palatinate ; and the cry to arms was so loud amongst the 
English and the Scotch, that James reluctantly marshalled 
a force of four thousand volunteers, not to support his 
son-in-law upon the throne of Bohemia, but to assist in 
defending his hereditary dominions. The scanty assist- 
ance came too late. Frederick was defeated by the Aus- 
trians at Prague, on the 7th of Nov. 1620, which decisive 
battle entirely destroyed his slight tenure of power in 
Bohemia. He was very shortly after driven from the 
Palatinate which was handed over to the tender mercies 
of the conquerors. The supporters of the elector in 
Bohemia, a country which had been the refuge of perse- 
cuted reformers, were trodden down by the iron heel of 
Austria. The Puritan party in England considered this 
misfortune as ' the greatest blow which the Church of God 
had received, since the first Reformation by Martin Luther 
in 1517.' The union of the Protestant princes was broken 
up. ' The Catholic principle passed with wonderful 
rai)idityfrom a moment of the utmost danger to an omnip- 
otent sway over the south of Germany and the Austrian 
provinces.' 

" It was during the excitement of this conflict, and in 
the month following the victory of the Austrians at 
Prague, that James adopted one of those arbitrary meas- 



LIFE OF BACON". 257 

iires which weak governments resort to in their imbecile 
desire to control public opinion. On the 27th of Decem- 
ber, says D'Ewes, ' I saw and perused a proclamation set 
out by his majesty inhibiting or forbidding any of his sub- 
jects to discourse of state-matters, either foreign or domes- 
tic ; which all men conceived to have been procured by the 
count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador.' " 

But if James covertly entertained the thought of return- 
ing England to the old faith, as did later his grandson, 
James the Second, he dare not brave the fire which he now 
saw kindling for the new. 

Thus matters stood when, on January 22d, 1620, sur- 
rounded by admiring friends, Bacon celebrated his six- 
tieth birthday at York House, the place of his birth, and 
where his father before him as Lord Keeper had lived. 
And in October appeared his crov^ning literary work, the 
Novum Organum, and concerning which, and with the 
hope of obtaining aid in the work, he wrote thus to the 
king : 

" It may please your most excellent Majesty : 
It being a thing to speak or write, especially to a king in 
public, another in private ; although I have dedicated a 
work, or rather a portion of a work, which at last, I have 
overcome, to your majesty, by a punic epistle where I 
speak to you in the hearing of others ; yet I thought fit 
also humbly to seek access for the same, not so much to 
your person, as to your judgment, by these private lines. 

'' The work, in what colours soever it may be set forth, 
is no more but a new logic, teaching to invent and judge 
by induction, as finding syllogism incompetent for sciences 
of nature ; and thereby to make philosophy and sciences 
both more true and more active. 

" This tending to enlarge the bounds of reason, and to 
endow man's estate with new value, was no improper obla 
tion^ to your majesty, who of men is the greatest master of 
reason and author of beneficence. 

' This word "oblation" is spread quite generally iu this litera- 
ture. In Addison, vol. iv., p. 330, we have : " When he is making 
his oblations at the temple, he will let the dish drop out of his hand, 
and fall a laughing, as if he had done some brave exploit." In 
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act v., sc. 3, p. 383, we have : 
" Per. Pare Diana ! 

I bless thee for thy vision, and will offer 
My night oblations to thee." 



258 LIFE OF B.VCON. 

" There be two of your council, and one other bishop 
of this hmd, that know 1 have been about some such work 
near thirty years ;' so as I made no haste. And the reason 
why I have published it now, especially being unperfect, 
is, to speak plainly, because I number my days, and would 
have it saved. There is another reason of my so doing, 
whick is to try whether I can get help in one intended 
part of this work, namely, the compiling of a natural and 
experimental history, which must be the main foundation 
of a true and active philosophy. 

" This work is but a new body of clay, whereunto your 
majesty, by your countenance and protection, may breathe 
life. And to tell your majesty truly what I think, 1 ac- 
count your favour may be to this work as much as a hun- 
dred years' time : for I am persuaded the work will gain 
upon men's minds in ages, but your gracing it may make 
it take hold more swiftly ; which I would be very glad of, 
it being a work meant, not for praise or glory, but for 
practice and the good of men. One thing I confess, I am 
ambitious of, with hope, which is, that after these begin- 
nings, and the wheel once set on going, men shall seek 
more truth out of Christian pens than hitherto they have 
done out of heathen. I say with hope, because I hear my 
former book of the Advancement of Learning, is well 
tasted in the universities here, and the English colleges 
abroad : and this is the same argument sunk deeper. 

'' And so I ever humbly rest in prayers, and all other 
duties, etc. York House this 12th of Oct., 1620." 
(Works, vol iii., p. 129.) 

We understand the basal idea of the Novum Organum 
to be, that the particulars of knowledge viewed relation- 
ally yield light in and of themselves to the mind, in that 
thus standing before attention, they yield the knowing 
faculty new products or conclusions ; and hence the reach- 
ing of discoveries before unknown. The conclusions are 

' From those great satires, Gulliver's Travels, p. 222, we quote as 
follows : " I had hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the 
other being appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of 
whom I shall say something, v^hen I have mentioned one illustrious 
person more, who is called among them ' the universal artist.' He 
told us ' he had heen thirty years employing his thoughts for the 
improvement of human life.'" Note at p. 216 that this academy 
of Lagado was an academy of projectors, and see the opening w^ords 
of ch. 6, p. 225. 



LIFE OF BACOX. 259 

not that which is viewed. While dwelling in attention 
we dwell in the field of invention, in the field from which 
spontaneity or inventions spring ; and this field, as de- 
scribed by Bacon, is the field of natural magic. In this 
field the will has no part, save that of directing the atten- 
tion or mental energies. To this extent and to this ex- 
tent only may our thoughts be said to be under our con- 
trol, or ours. The will may apply honey to the tongue, 
but there its power ceases, and the effect, the product, the 
sweetness, is wholly independent of it. N'ot only this, but 
the product is unlike the thing itself. We may o'ermaster 
the spontaneous shiftings of the globes of vision, but once 
set no power of the will or shifting force can either pro- 
duce or prevent the retinal effects — in other words, the 
products to the mind. The products themselves, both 
objective and subjective, of mind, spring ever indepen- 
dently of the will ; and hence the field of the divine and 
the field of the human provision or providence. This 
human providence is wise or unwise according as we may 
choose to set and hold the mental energies to wise or 
unwise courses. As applied to science, this, as we under- 
stand it, is the first stage of Bacon's methods of schooling 
wisely the intellect to external relations, purging first 
from the mind its idols. From this stage selected particu- 
lars of knowledge may be tabled, and they so standing and 
viewed relationally again yield new and higher light. 
Thus the objective or outlying world, by a wise choice, 
and within the range of experience, becomes transfigured or 
subjectively knit, in its just relations to the mental texture, 
so to speak, and thus is formed in the sensibility the very 
substance, body, ground ; or, as it were, the very earth, 
air, sea, and sky, so to speak, ready for subjective evolu- 
tion or recall. But mere memory, the possibility of recall, 
may draw from experience only. Imagination may do 
more. It may not merely from the sensibility recall out- 
lines, boundaries, forms, and relations once experienced 
to present consciousness, but by its own kaleidoscopic 
combinings or creative evolutions, as evidenced in dream 
life, it may create or produce wholly, vividly, and in- 
stantly anew, and beyond and different from that ever 
before experienced in the sensibility. With care do we 
chose here our words. Imagination may feebly do this in 
the second, tlie subjective wakeful state of the mind, by 



260 LIFE OF BACON". 

the dwelling of attention subjectively upon known rela- 
tions. But the mind can never normally in this second 
state, as it may in the third or dream life, have active 
perceptions of objects and relations, nor may ib ever nor- 
mally during wakefulness, nnless such objects and rela- 
tions are present to sense. This can normally arise during 
wakefulness only in the first, or purely objective state of 
the mind, when in relation with the outer world of sense. ^ 
Science fails utterly to show us how, in this third state 
or stage of the mind, it may have active perceptions with- 
out physical objects, and which stage is and can be reached 
normally only when the objective nerve centres have 
found repose — that is, been locked to external relations. 
How, for instance, may the mind in this state be so 
vividly conscious of definite objects of sight, and even of 
those never beheld during wakefulness without the physi- 
cal rays of light and the particular physical object being 
present to the retina? And as to this, so of the other 
senses. Sight is a species of touch through a purposely 
devised organ. Can the objects of sight, then, in this 
state rest in material change or effects upon the retina ; 
in other words, in sensations ? We here reach the deep- 
est mysteries of mind, and which hitherto have been but 
feebly or but partially explored. In this field Bacon him- 

' Yet in the repose of sk'ep, with the external avenues to sense 
closed, with no physical object presented to the retina of the eye, no 
sound to the ear, smell, touch, or taste presented to the conscious- 
ness, the mental world thus without aid of external sense may live 
a full rounded life of most vivid consciousness as to objects and re- 
lations and even amid those never before experienced. The spirit 
now during the repose of its instrument, the body, may be up and 
active, and in full relations either of antics, business, or pleasure. 
It may live and meander amid beautiful scenery. It may discourse 
of the objects before it— the rising sun, the sky, the landscape, the 
delicacy of fruits, or the fragrance of flowers ; and this to faces 
never beheld during wakefulness. Sadness in turn may visit it, and 
it may awake in a flood of tears, thus showing that it has been 
passing through active experiences, the effects of which no amount 
of mere thinking during wakefulness could produce, and so vivid, 
perhaps, as to require moments of reflection to determine that the 
experience was really a dream, and this done only by the surround- 
ing conditions of wakefulness. These thoughts are not matters of 
fancy, but facts more or less familiar to the consciousness of e very- 
individual. And if these things may take place witliout aid from 
the senses, the thought naturally suggests itself, May they not when 
their sum — the body — is dropped altogether ? 



LIFE OF BACOJT. 261 

self recommends further exploration. But for the particu- 
lar views here expressed we hold ourselves responsible. 
From his Addison, vol. iv., pp. 1-5, we quote an able 
^article upon the subject, aud which is in these words : 

" Though there are many authors who have written on 
dreams, they have generally considered them only as 
revelations of what has already happened in distant parts 
of the world, or as passages^ of what is to happen in future 
periods of time. 

^' I shall consider this subject in another light, as 
dreams may give us some idea of the great excellency of 
a human soul, and some intimations of its independency 
on matter." 

" In the first place, our dreams are great instances of 
that activity which is natural to the human soul, and 
which it is not in the power of sleep to deaden or abate. 
When the man appears tired and worn out with labours 
of the day, this active part of his composition is still 
busied and unwearied.. When the organs of sense want 
their due repose and necessary reparations, and the body 
is no longer able to keep pace with that spiritual sub- 
stance^ to which it is united, the soul exerts herself in her 
several faculties, and continues in the action till her 
partner is again qualified to bear her company. In this 

' This use of the word " passages" and the expression " passages 
of action" is distinctively Baconian. Bacon says: "The govern- 
ment of the Soul in moving the Body is inward and profound, and 
the passages thereof hardly to be reduced to demonstration." (Phil. 
Works, vol. iii., p. 474.) " For as in buildings there is great pleasure 
and use in the well casting of the stair-cases, entries, doors, windows, 
and the like ; so in speech the conveyances and passages are of 
special ornament and effect." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 418.) 
" And though he had fine passages of action, yet the real conclusions 
came slowly on." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., p. 280.) And in sub. 
326 of his Natural History he says : " But we, wiien we shall come 
to handle the version and transmutation of bodies, and the experi- 
ments concerning metals and minerals, will lay open the true ways 
and passages of nature, which may lead to this great effect." In 
Hamlet, Act iv., sc. 7, p. 341, we have : 

" But that I know love is begun by time ; 
And that I see, in passages of proof." 
^ This independency may be later noted in quotations from Defoe. 
These authors all knew the same things and in the same sense. 

2 As to the words " spiritual substance" as applied to the soul and 
these distinctive views concerning it, see cli. 3, Book 4 of the De Aug- 
mentis. From it w^e quote a single sentence, as follows : " The doc- 



262 LIFE OF BACON". 

case dreams look like the relaxations and amusements of 
the soul, when she is disencambered of her machine, her 
sports and recreations, when she has laid her charge 
asleep. 

" In the second place, dreams are an instance of that 
agility and perfection which is natural to the faculties of 
the mind, when they are disengaged from the body. The 
soul is clogged and retarded in her operations, when she 
acts in conjunction with a companion that is so heavy 
and unwieldy in its motions. But in dreams it is won- 
derful to observe with what a sprightliness and alacrity 
she exerts herself.^ The slow of speech make unpremedi- 
tated harangues, or converse readily in languages that 
they are but little acquainted with. The grave abound 
in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. 
There is not a more painful action of the mind than in- 
vention ;^ yet in dreams it works with that ease and 
activity, that we are not sensible when the faculty is em- 
ployed. For instance, I believe every one some time or 
other, dreams that h-e is reading papers, books, or letters ; 
in which case the invention prompts so readily, that the 
mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions 
for the compositions of another. 

" I shall under this head, quote a passage out of the 
Religio Medici, in which the ingenious author gives an 
account of himself in his dreaming and his waking 
thoughts. ' We are somewhat more than ourselves in our 
sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the 
waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the 
liberty of reason ; and our waking conceptions do not 
match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my as- 
trine of the inspired substaace, as also of the substance of the rational 
soul, comprehends several inquiries with relation to its nature, as 
whether tlie soul be native or adventitious, separable or inseparable, 
mortal or immortal ; how far it is subject to the laws of matter, 
how far not, and the like." (Bohn's ed., p. 172.) 

^ For a f urtlier phase of the subject, see Defoe's History of the 
Devil, p. 548. 

* In our mentioned Head light Bacon makes use of the words 
" because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to 
be more painful than most parts of action are." And in Love's 
Labour's Lost, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 386, we have the expression " pain- 
ful study." 

^ Bacon in making a quotation ever uses the words "out of," 
and so they will be found throughout these writings. 



LIFE OF BACON". 263 

cendant was the watery sign of Scorpins : I was born in 
the planetary hour of Saturn, and, I think, I have a piece 
of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor 
disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company ; yet 
in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the 
action, comprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at 
the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my 
reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my 
dreams ; and this time also would 1 choose for my devo- 
tions : but our grosser memories have then so little hold 
of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the 
story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused 
and broken tale of that that has passed. — Thus it is ob- 
served, that men sometimes, upon the hour of their depar- 
ture, do speak and reason above themselves ; for then the 
soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, 
begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain 
above mortality.' 

'' We may likewise observe in the third place, that the 
passions affect the mind with greater strength when we 
are sleep, than when we are awake. Joy and sorrow give 
us more vigorous sensations of pain or pleasure at this 
time, than any other. Devotion likewise, as the excellent 
author above-mentioned has hinted, in a very particular 
manner heightened and inflamed,^ when it rises in the soul 
at a time that the body is thus laid at rest. Every man's 
experience will inform him in this matter, though it is 
very probable that this may happen differently in different 
constitutions. I shall conclude this head with the two 
following problems, which I shall leave to the solution of 
the reader. Supposing a man always happy in his dreams, 
and miserable in his waking thoughts, and that his life 
was equally divided between them, whether would he be 
more happy or miserable ? Were a man a king in his 
dreams, and a beggar awake, and dreamt as consequen- 
tially and in as continued unbroken schemes as he thinks 
when awake, whether he would be in reality a king or a 
beggar, or rather whether he would not be both ?^ 

^ To Bacon's distinctive use of this word "inflamed" we have 
already called attention. 
^ In Romeo and Juliet, Act v., sc. 1, p. 146, we have : 

" Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep, 
My dreams presage some joyful news at' hand : 



264 LIFE OF BACON. 

'* There is another circumstance, which methinks gives 
us a very high idea of the nature of the sou], in regard to 
what passes in dreams, I mean that innumerable multi- 
tude and variety of ideas which then arise in her. Were 
that active and watchful being only conscious of her own 
existence at such a time, what a painful solitude would 
her hours of sleep be ? Were the soul sensible of her 
being alone in her sleeping moments, after the same 
manner that she is sensible of it while awake, the time 
would hang very heavy on her, as it often actually does 
when she dreams that she is in such a solitude :* 

" — Semperque relinqui 
Sola sibi semper longam incomitata videtur 
Ire viam— " — Virg. 

'' But this observation I only make by the way. What 
I would here remark, is that wonderful power in the 
soul, of producing her own company upon these occa- 
sions. She converses with numberless beings of her own 
creation, and is transported into ten thousand scenes of 
her own raising. She is herself the theatre, the actor, 
and the beholder.* This puts me in mind of a saying 
which I am infinitely pleased with^ and which Plutarch 

My bosom's lord sits lightly in liis throne ; 

And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit 

Lifts me above the ground witli cheerful thoughts. 

I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead, 

(Strange dream ! that gives a dead man leave to think,) 

And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips. 

That I reviv'd, and was an emperor." 

' Observe the emphasis in Bacon's attributed writings upon the 
subjects of silence and solitude, and note it later in connection with 
the Serious Reflections of Crusoe, hereafter to be considered. 
^ And in The Tempest, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 85, we have : 
" These our actors, 
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 
Are melted into air, into thin air : 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
Tiie solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." ^ 



LIFE OF BACON. 265 

ascribes to Heraclitns, ' That all men, whilst they are 
awake, are in one common world ; but that each of tliem, 
when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.' The waking 
man is conversant in the world of nature, when he sleeps 
he retires to a piivate world that is particular to himself. 
There seems something in this consideration that intimates 
to us a natural grandeur and perfection in the soul which 
is rather to be admired than explained. 

" I must not omit that argument for the excellency of 
the soul, which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, 
namely, its powder of divining in dreams.' That several 
such divinations have been made none can question, who 
believe the holy writings, or who has but the least degree 
of a common historical faith ; there being innumerable 
instances of this nature in several authors, both ancient 
and modern, sacred and profane. Whether such dark 
passages,^ such visions of the night, proceed from any 
latent power of the soul, during this her state of abstrac- 
tion, or from any communication with the Supreme Being, 
or from any operation of subordinate spirits,^ has been a 
great dispute among the learned ; the matter of fact, is, 
I think, incontestable, and has been looked upon as such 
by the greatest writers, who have been never suspected 
either of superstition or enthusiasm. 

^' I do not suppose, that the soul, in these instances, is 
entirely loose and unfettered from the body : it is suffi- 
cient, if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter,* 

^ Bacon says : " There be some perfumes prescribed by the writers 
of natural magic, which procure pleasant dreams ; and some others 
(as they say) which procure prophetic dreams ; as the seeds of flax, 
fleaworth, etc," (Sub. 938 of Bacon's Natural History.) Every 
phase of this subject was familiar to him, as his writings will abun- 
dantly show. In sub. 955 he says : " For imagination is like to 
work better upon sleeping men than men awake ; as we shall show 
when we handle dreams. ' ' 

" We here again have Bacon's use of the word " passages." 

2 The subject of these subordinate spirits is handled in the Defoe 
work on Apparitions, and in Crusoe's " Vision of the Angelic 
World." 

^ This distinctive and unusual expression "immersed in matter" 
Bacon uses thus : " Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject, 
which of all others is most immersed in matter, and with most 
difficulty reduced to axioms." (Phil. Works, vol, v., p, 32.) He 
also says : " We must note, that as physics regards the things which 
are wholly immersed in matter and movable, so metaphysics regards 
what is more abstracted and fixed," He likewise makes use of the 



266 LIFE OF BACOK. 

nor entangled and perplexed in her operations, with such 
motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the 
machine in its waking hours. The corporeal union is 
slackened enough to give the mind more play. The soul 
seems gathered within herself, and recovers that spring 
which is broken and weakened, when she operates more 
in concert with the body. 

" The speculations I have here made, if they are not 
arguments, they are at least strong intimations, not only 
of the excellency of a human soul, but of its independency 
on the body ; and if they do not prove, do at least confirm 
these two great points, which are established by many 
other reasons that are altogether unanswerable." 

And he closes an article touching allegory and the 
imagination in his Addison, vol. iii., p. 429, thus : 

" There is not a sight in nature so mortifying as that 
of a distracted person, when his imagination is troubled, 
and his whole soul disordered and confused. Babylon in 
ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle. But to quit so 
disagreeable a subject, I shall only consider, by way of 
conclusion, what an infinite advantage this faculty gives 
an almighty being over the soul of man, and how great a 
measure of happiness or misery we are capable of receiving 
from the imagination only.* 

" We have already seen the influence that one man has 
over the fancy of another, and with what ease he conveys 
into^ it a variety of images f how great a power then may 

expression " drenched in flesh and blood," and in Macbeth, Act i., 
sc. 7, p. 266, we have : 

" When in swinish sleep 
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death, 
What cannot you and I perform upon 
The unguarded Duncan ?" 

Bacon says of swine that " their flesh is moister than that of any 
other animal. " (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 235.) 

' See in this connection our quotation from Bacon at p. 194. 

'■^ Bacon aided much his definiteness of thought by a wise choice 
of the direction words of the language ; in other words, prepositions, 
and particularly so in the use of the word "into." Note its use 
here and throughout, and particularly in the plays. We shall indeed 
find this word to be so used as to be a distinct earmark in these 
writings. 

^ See. please, upon this point Bacon's Natural History, sub. 901- 
60. Sub. 947 is as follows: "For authorit^^ it is of two kinds: 
belief in an art, and belief in a man. And for things of belief in an 



LIFE OF BACON". 267 

we suppose lodged in Him, who knows all the ways of 
affecting the imagination, who can infuse what ideas he 
pleases, and fill those ideas with terror or delight to what 
degree he thinks tit ! He can excite images in the mind 
without the help of words, and make scenes rise up before 
us and seem present to the eye, without the assistance of 
bodies or exterior objects. He can transport the imagina- 
tion with such beautiful and glorious visions, as cannot 
possibly enter into our present conceptions ; or haunt it 
with such ghostly spectres and apparitions, as would make 
us hope for annihilation, and think existence no better than 
a curse.' In short, he can so exquisitely ravish or torture 
the soul through this single faculty, as mi.s^ht sutfice to 
make up the whole heaven or hell of a finite being." 

Bacon indeed recommends the writing of a " History 
of Sleep and Dreams." ^ And in his De Augmentis, ch. 
1, Book 4, he, as to *' the League or Common Bond be- 
tween soul and body," and " how these two disclose the one 
the other," considers the soul under the heads of Physiog- 
nomy and Dreams, and concerning them says : '' And al- 
though they have of late times been polluted with supersti- 
tious and fantastical arts, yet being purged and restored to 
their true state, they have both a solid ground in nature 

art, a man may exercise them by himself ; but for belief la a man, 
it must be by another. Therefore if a man believe in astrology, and 
find a figure prosperous ; or believe in natural magic, and "that a 
ring with such a stone, or such a piece of a living creature, carried, 
will do good ; it may help his imagination ; but the belief in a man 
is far the more active. But howsoever, all authority must be out of a 
man's self, turned (as was said) either upon an art, or upon a man ; 
and where authority is from one man to another, there the second 
must be ignorant, and not learned, or full of thoughts ; and such 
are (for the most part) all witches and superstitious persons ; whose 
beliefs, tied to their teachers and traditions, are no whit controlled 
either by reason or experience ; and upon the same reason, in magic, 
they use (for the most part) boys and young people ; whose spirits 
easiliest take belief and imagination." 

' See Clarence's dream in Richard HI., Act i., sc. 4, p. 54, and 
which opens thus : 

" Clar. O ! I have pass'd a miserable night, 
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights. 
That, as I am a Christian faithful man, 
I would not spend another such a night. 
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days ; 
So full of dismal terror was the time." 
' Philosophical Works, vol. iv., p. 268. 



268 LIFE OF BACON. 

and a profitable use in life. The first is Physiognomy,' 
which discovers the dispositions of the mind by the line- 
aments of the body ; the second is the Interpretation of 
Natural Dreams, which discovers the state and disposition 
of the body by the agitations of the mind. In the former 
of these 1 note a deficience. For Aristotle has ye^y 
ingeniously and diligently handled the structure of the 
body when at rest, but the structure of the body when in 
motion (that is the gestures of the body) he has omitted ; 
which nevertheless are equally within the observations of 
art, and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments 
of the body disclose the dispositions and inclinations of 
the mind in general ; but the motions and gestures of 
the countenance and parts do not only so, but disclose 
likewise the seasons of access, and the present humour 
and state of the mind and will. For as your Majesty says 
most aptly and elegantly, ' As the tongue speaketh to the 
ear so the gesture speaketh to the eye.' And well is this 
known to a number of cunning and astute persons ; whose 
eyes dwell upon the faces'^ and gestures of men, and make 
their own advantage of it,^ as being most part of their 
ability and wisdom. Neither indeed can it be denied, but 
that it is a wonderful index of simulation in another, 
and an excellent direction as to the choice of proper times 
and seasons to address persons ; which is no small part of 
civil wisdom. Nor let any one imagine that a sagacity of 
this kind may be of use with respect to particular persons, 
but cannot fall under a general rule ; for we all laugh and 
weep and frown and blush nearly in the same fashion ; 
and so it is (for the most part) in the more subtle motions.^ 

' See the article on Physiognomy in Addison, vol. ii., pp. 398-402, 
^ Tliroiighout these writings observe the empliasis phiced upon the 
"face," and see Addison, vol. ii., p. 421. In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, 
p. 285, we have : 

" Give him heedful note : 
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ; 
And, after, we will both our judgments join 
In censure of his seeming." 
2 The Baconian expressions " find their account in it" and " make 
their own advantage of it" may be found in most phases of these 
writings. They occur in many places in Addison, and in vol. v., p. 
170, we have : " Let this be a secret, and you shall fiad your account 
in it." 

^ It was on the basis of this thought that he made his tables apply 
to mental as wtll as to material change. 



LIFE OF BACOIT. 2G9 

Bat if any one be reminded here of chiromancy, let him 
know' that it is a vain imposture, not worthy to be so 
much as mentioned in discourses of this nature. With 
regard to the Interpretation of Natural Dreams, it is a 
thing that has been laboriously handled by many writers, 
but it is fall of follies.^ At present I will only observe 
that it is not grounded upon the most solid foundation of 
which it admits ; which is, that when the same sensation 
is produced in the sleeper by an internal cause which is 
usually the effect of some external act, that external act 
passes into the dream." ' 

As to the imagination Bacon says : '' It was ever thought 
to have some participation of divineness, because it doth 
raise and erect the mind by submitting the shows of 
things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth 
buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things." 

Again he says : " The imagination not being tied* to 
the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature 
hath severed and sever that which nature hath joined ; 
and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things." 
(Works, vol. i., p. 144.) 

Imagination is neither tied to the order nor to the 
relations of the outlying world, though it drawls what it 

^ To this expression, " let him know," we have already called atten- 
tion, and shall do so again when we come to the work Crnsoe. 

2 Let the emphasis on the word "folly" be noted throughout, 
together with the rhyming of it with " melancholy" in the poem 
introductory to the Anatomy of Melancholy. 

3 While this may have an influence in turning aside or giving 
direction to a dream drama, still it wdl in no way explain or account 
for the objects and scenes themselves, nor furnish the light, earth, 
air, seas, nor sky of them. Nor can science tell us how in this third 
stage of the mind it may have retinal effects without actual rays of 
light and the particular physical objects from which they may spring. 
Nor can imagination in the wakeful state, even by effort, ever present 
to consciousness actual objects and experiences. 

•* We have already in earlier pages called attention to this unusual 
use of the word "tie" and given examples. We will add from 
King Henry V., Act v., sc. 2, p. 587, the following : 

" King. This moral ties me over to time, and a hot summer ; and 
so I will catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must 
be blind too." 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 143, we have : "He said, that a tender 
conscience was an unmanly thing ; and that for a man to watch 
over his words and way, so as to tie up himself from that hectoring 
liberty that the brave\spirits of the times accustomed themselves 
unto, would make him the ridicule of the times." 



270 LIFE OF BACOif. 

will from its grounds, both objective and subjective. 
But as the will may by choice so direct the mental energies 
as wisely to enrich the subjective world or sensibility, so 
subjectively it may inhibit fugitive thought and desires, 
and thus point and hold the mental energies in the partic- 
ular direction from which spontaneity is sought. And so 
the mind may grow to a habit in this. This method of 
control is recommended to the queen in the play of 
Hamlet, and in the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii., p. 
357, it is recommended generally as to the passions, and 
wherein it is said " if one chance to light upon a woman, 
that hath good behavior joined with her excellent person, 
and'lhall perceive his e^es, with a kind of greediness, to 
pull unto them this image of beauty, and carry it to the 
heart ; shall observe himself to be somewhat incensed 
with this influence, which moveth within ; when he shall 
discern those subtle spirits sparkling in her eyes' to min- 
ister more fuel to the fire ; he must wisely withstand the 
beginnings, rouse up reason stupefied almost ; fortify his 
heart^ by all means, and shut up all those passages' by 
which it may have entrance." 

' As to the eyes, we in Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii., sc. 3, 
p. 398, have : 

*' Things growing are not ripe until their season ; 
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason ; 
And touching now the point of human skill, 
Reason becomes the marshal to my will. 
And leads me to your eyes ; where I o'erlook 
Love's stories written in love's richest book," 

2 Note the expression "fortify the heart." Bacon, and in con- 
nection with this subject of melancholy, says : " For the physicians 
prescribe drugs to heal mental deseases, as in the treatment of 
phrensy and melancholy ; and pretend also to exhibit medicines to 
exhilarate the mind, to fortify the heart and thereby confiim the 
courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory, and the 
like." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 877.) And as to fortifying the 
heart, we in Hamlet, Act i., sc. 2, p. 209, have : 

" But to persevere 
In obstinate condolement, is a course 
Of impious stubbornness ; 'tis unmanly grief ; 
It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven ; 
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, 
An understanding simple and unschool'd." 

" Here, again, we have Bacon's word " passages," and in Macbeth 
we find the expression " stop up the access and p&gs.ige to remorse." 



LIFE OF BACON. 271 

Let it be here particularly noted that in all of the 
works under review there is manifested the settled opinion 
that both lust and pride are first set in motion through the 
eyes.' Even in the youthful treatise, the Anatomy of 
Abuses, we, p. 9, as to pride, have : " Pride is tripar- 
tite, namely, the pride of the heart, the pride of the 
mouth, and the pride of apparel, the last whereof (unless 
I be deceived) offendeth G-od more than the other two. 
For as the pride of the heart, and of the mouth, are not 
opposite to the eye, nor visible to the sight, and therefore 
cannot entice others to vanity and sin (notwithstanding 
they be grievous sins in the sight of God) ; so the pride 
of apparel object to the sight, as an exampler of evil, 
induceth the whole man to wickedness and sin." 

During this 3^ear, 1620, and following the issue of the 
Novum Organum, was planted by the Pilgrim Fathers the 
first permanent settlement in that part of America known 
as New England. 

The next year, 1621, Bacon received the honorary title 
of Viscount St. Albans, thus reaching the zenith of his 
prosperity, though by no means of his fame, which even 
now anew enkindles. 

But the throes of the tempest which were to wreck his 
fortunes were at this time fed fat and trembling to the 
birth, as James, pretending aid to Bohemia, though really 
for private aid, resolved upon another Parliament late in 
1620, and which convened in January, 1621. Not merely 
the mining trails of Coke and envy had been laid ; but 
being in the way of influences that had long tried to 
ripen, herein stood an ambush of greater danger.^ A new 

1 In Twelfth Night, Act i., sc. 5, p. 373, we have : 

" How now ? 
Even so quickly may one catch the plague. 
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections 
With an invisible and subtle stealth 
To creep in at mine eyes. ' ' 

See the court of the eye described in Love's Labour's Lost, Act ii., 
sc. 1, p. 393. 

■^ Promus, 749. I may be in their light, but not in their way. 
On February 16th there was a conference of the Lords to settle upon 
the points for a petition to be presented to the king, asking the better 
enforcement of the laws against Jesuits, seminary priests, and Popish 
recusants. Bacon was chairman of the conference, and the next day 



272 LIFE OF BACON. 

policy was now at once pursued toward the king. The 
Commons, under the leadership of Coke, at the very out- 
set of the session, and without a dissenting voice, voted 
him two subsidies. Then in a temperate, discreet, and sys- 
tematic manner they went to their grievances, which later 
they awoke to a universal cry for reform. 

The Treasury was still in commission, and as late as 
October 7th, five days before the issue of his Novum 
Organum, Bacon in a letter to Buckingham was urging 
upon the king the appointment of a Treasurer. lie 
■says : " The state of his Majesty's treasure still maketh 
me sad, and I am sorry I was not at Ti balls to report it, 
or that it was not done by my fellows.^ It is most neces- 
sary we do it faithfully and freely ; for to flatter in this, 
were to betray his Majesty with a kiss. I humbly pray 
his Majesty to think of my former counsel, and this I will 
promise, that wliosoever his Majesty shall make Treasurer, 
if his Majesty will direct him to have relation to my 
advice, I will continue the same care and advice I do 
now, and much more cheerfully when I shall perceive 
that my propositions shall not be literm scvipkB in glacier 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. IIO.) 

Bacon entered this Parliament stoutly urging reform. 
And many facts show that the king was now growing 
apprehensive that the screen, Buckingham, was absorbing 
too greedily. He was growing rapidly out of the king's 
power to adjust or control, as events will show. Bacon 
urged that the most obnoxious patents, such as alehouses, 
inns, the monopoly of gold and silver thread, should be 
given up ; and he wrote to Buckingham, whose brothers 
were interested, to withdraw them from the pending 
storm. The advice was rejected. Extravagant and un- 
warranted exactions under Buckingham, scarcely to be 
credited, were pressed for examination on every side. 
There were patents for each of the necessaries of life 
e\en, and the profits were being shared by various classes 
connected with Buckingham. Though the king was re- 
ceiving but a portion of the spoils, still he was receiving 

made the presentation speech to the king. See Bacon's Letters, 
vol, vii., pp. 181-83. 

1 This word " fellows," as used in the New Atlantis, in The Pil- 
grim's Progress, and in the Plays, will be found to have its distinc- 
tive use throughout. 



LIFE OF BACOi^. 273 

all the odium. Before a committee of the House it ap- 
peared that the Countess of Bedford, Lord Harrington, 
Christopher Villiers, a brother, and Sir George Villiers, 
a half-brother, of Buckingham, between them received 
£1800 annually, and that from one single patent alone the 
king received £10,000. James, ever a moral coward, now 
became alarmed at the rumors, and especially so as the 
Commons were beginning to be gracious to him. He at 
once communicated to the Lords that this patent had 
been sanctioned by several of the judges in point of law. 
He had through Buckingham, in October, 1618, requested 
Bacon to consult the Lord Chief Justice, the Attorney- 
General, and the Solicitor-General in relation thereto, and 
with the following result : 

*' May it please your most excellent Majesty : 
According to your majesty's pleasure, signified to us by 
the Lord Marquis Buckingham, we have considered of 
the fitness and conveniency of the gold and silver thread 
business, as also the profit that may accrue u]ito your 
majesty. 

" We are of opinion that it is convenient that the same 
should be settled, having been brought hither at the great 
charge of your majesty's own agent, and being a means to 
set many of your poor subjects on work ; and to this pur- 
pose there was a former certificate to your majesty from 
some of us with others. 

" And for the profit that will arise, we see no cause to 
doubt ; but do conceive apparent likelihood, that it will 
redound much to your majesty's profit, which we esteem 
may be at the least ten thousand pounds by the year ; 
and, therefore, in a business of such benefit to your maj- 
esty, it were good it were settled with all convenient 
speed, by all lawful means that may be thought of ; which 
notwithstanding we most humbly leave to your majesty's 
wisdom. Your majesty's most humble and faithful ser- 
vant?. Fr. Verulam, Cane. H. Montagu, Henry Yelver- 
ton." (Works, vol. iii., p. 177.) 

Earlier the king had impatiently urged to the seal this 
monopoly, as will appear from the following letter from 
Buckingham to Bacon, under date February 7th, 1617 : 

" My Honorable Lord : His majesty marvelleth, that 
he heareth nothing of the business touching the gold and 
silver thread ; and therefore hath commanded me to write 



274 LIFE OF BACON. 

unto yowY lordship to hasten the dispatch of it ; and to 
gi\^e him as speedy an account thereof as you can. And 
so I rest Your lordship's faithful servant G. Bucking- 
ham." (Works, voh iii., p. 113.) 

This patent was granted to Sir Giles Mompesson and 
Sir Francis Mitchell, and who by this Parliament were 
brought to punishment for frauds committed under it. 

If the king had merely intended a curtail upon Buck- 
ingham and his dependents, things were now so shaped 
by certain manipulators that he was himself put to the 
dread of much odium ; and which must, as he was advised, 
if not diverted, fall full upon himself. His long screen- 
managed affairs were now upon the very eve of full inves- 
tigation. But his fears did not stop there, for he saw 
that investigation, if allowed to go forward, must disclose 
to the Spanish court his true financial needs and motive 
for the still pending marriage alliance. Hume says the 
Infanta was to " bring with her an immense fortune of 
two million pieces of eight, or six hundred thousand 
pounds sterling — a sum four times greater than Spain 
had ever before given with any princess, and almost equal 
to all the money which the Parliament, during the whole 
course of this reign, had hitherto granted to the king." 
(Hume, vol. iv., p. 63.) 

And so the king, who had through Bacon moved the 
Parliament to these purgings, receded, and permitted the 
tempest to fall where its guiding spirits sought, and so in 
full upon Bacon, and concerning which he in Sonnet 118 
says : 

" Like as, to make our appetites more keen, 
With eager compounds we our palate urge ; 
As, to prevent our maladies unseen, 
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge ; 
Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, 
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding ;^ 
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness 
To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. 

^ This use of the word " feed " is Baconian. He says : " A man 
who feeds twice a day takes no small quantity of meat and drink 
into his body ; much more indeed than he discharges by stool, urine, 
or sweat." (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 314.) In The Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, p. 379, we have: "As for Mr. Despondency, the music was 
not so much to him ; he was for feeding rather than dancing, for 
that he was almost starved. " 



LIFE OF BACOl!^. 275 

Thus policy in love, t' anticipate 
The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd, 
And brought to medicine a healthful state, 
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd : 
But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, 
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you." ^ 

Buckingham, fearing full exposure to king and people, 
now consulted Williams, Dean of Westminster, a man 
subtle in matters of state, and in whom Buckingham's 
mother is said to have had a deep interest. Williams 
advised that Buckingham's brother, Yilliers, be at once 
sent upon some foreign em.bassy. He next advised com- 
pliance with the popular humor, and that certain persons, 
including Mompesson and Mitchell, should be thrown 
over board as wares that might now the better be dis- 
pensed with. Buckingham (the false brother of The 
Tempest) had professed hitherto to be guided by Bacon's 
counsels. But now he not only consulted with Williams, 
but with him went privately to the king. The king had 
at Grst thought to dissolve the Parliament, even though 
thereby he were to lose his mentioned subsidies. But 
AVilliams — had he thus early Buckingham's encourage- 
ment for the seals — dissuaded the king from that course, 
saying : " There is no colour to quarrel at this general as- 
sembly of the kingdom, for tracing delinquents to their 
form : it is their j^roper work, and your majesty hath 
nobly encouraged them to it. Your lordship," he said, 
turning to Buckingham, " is jealous, if the Parliament 
continue embodied, of your own safety. Follow it, swim 
with the tide : trust me and your other servants that have 
some credit with the most active members, to keep you 
clear from the strife of tongues ; but if you break up this 
Parliament, in pursuit of justice, only to save some cor- 
morants who have devoured that which they must dis- 
gorge, you will pluck up a sluice which Avill overwhelm 
you all. Resistance will be attended with danger to your 
lordship and to his majesty. These popular outcries 
thrive by opposition, and when they cease to be opposed, 
they cease to exist. The Chancellor has been accused. 
He cannot escape unheard. He must be acquitted or con- 
victed. He cannot, in this time of excitement and pre- 

' This sonnet should be read with close attention, and the mind 
should return to it after other relations have been introduced. 



276 LIFE OF BACON". 

judgment, expect justice. His mind will easily be im- 
pressed by the fate of other great men, sacrificos to the 
blind ignorance of a vulgar populace, whom talent will 
not propitiate or innocence appease. Can it be doubted, 
that the prudent course will be the Chancellor's submis- 
sion, as an atonement for all who are under popular sus- 
picion ? ^ The only difficulty will be to prevail upon him 
to submit. He has resolved to defend himself, and in 
speech he is all-powerful ; but he is of a yielding nature, 
a lover of letters, in mind contemplative, although in life 
active ; his love of retirement may be wrought upon ; the 
king can remit any fine, and, the means once secured to 
him of learned leisure for the few remaining years of his 
life, he will easily be induced to quit the paradise of 
earthly honours.'' (Works, vol. i., p. 92.) 

That this course was pursued toward Bacon every feat- 
ure of what follows in the history of his overthrow bears 
witness. On March 17th, 1621, he presided for the last 
time in the House of Lords. He was now at once made 
to realize the faithlessness of friends, as well as the malig- 
nity of his enemies. Coke was the foremost spirit in 
Parliament. The charges were at first but those of Awbry 
and Egerton of the previous year. They were now ac- 
cumulated to twenty-eight in number. The complaints 
were not to the effect that the gratuities had, but that 
they had not, influenced his decision, as he had decided 
against the parties making the presents, and this was 
their grievance. In some of these matters he had but 
acted as arbitrator, in some they were loans, and in other 
instances presents had been given to servants. Fourteen 
of them related to presents claimed to have been made 
long after the causes were terminated or disposed of. Let 
it be investigated as to whether there were here gratuities 
that were, and were intended, to go to the king. 

Mining into the state of the Treasury, now managed 
through projects and monopolies, was, and according to 
design, diverted to the inquiry touching the Chancellor. 
And for this reason, doubtless, it was that his alluded-to 
scheme for revenue never came to light, and which sub- 
ject we shall later call under review. 

^ We shall later find Bacon to say in one of the sonnets that he 
alone bore the " canopy." 



LIFE OF BACON". 277 

The accumulation of the mentioned charges caused 
Bacon to write thus to Buckingham : 

'' My very good Lord : Your lordship spoke of pur- 
gatory. I am now in it ; hut my mind is in a calm ; for 
my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean 
hands, and a clean heart ; and I hope a clean house for 
friends and servants. But Job hiniself, or whosoever was 
the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against 
him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem 
foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and 
accusation is the game. And if this be to be a chancellor, 
I think, if the great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, 
nobody would take it up. But the king and your lord- 
ship will I hope put an end to these my straits one way or 
other. And, in truth, that which I fear most, is, lest 
continual attendance and business, together with these 
cares, and want of time to do my weak body right this 
spring by diet and physic,^ will cast me down ; and that 
it will be thought feigning, or fainting. But I hope in 
God I shall hold out. God prosper you." (Works, vol. 
iii., p. 134.) 

On March 19th, being too depressed to assume his 
position in the House of Lords, he, by the hands of Buck- 
ingham, sends them the following communication : 

" My very good Lords : I humbly pray your lord- 
ships all to make a favorable and true construction of my 
absence. It is not feigning or fainting, but sickness both 
of my heart and of my back, though joined with that 
comfort of mind that persuadeth me that I am not far 
from Heaven, whereof I feel the first-fruits. 

" And because, whether I live or die I would be glad to 
preserve my honour and fume, so far as I am worthy ; 
hearing that some complaints of base bribery are coming 
before your lordships, my requests unto your lordships 
are : 

'' First, That you will maintain me in your good opin- 
ion, without prejudice, until my cause be heard. 

" Second, That in regard I have sequestered my mind 
at this time in great part from worldly matters, thinking 
of my account and answers in a high court, your lord- 
ships will give me convenient time, according to the course 

^ Note later in Sonnet 147 his allusion to this word " physic." 



278 LIFE OF BACOIT. 

of Other courts, to advise with my counsel, and to make 
my answer ; wherein, nevertheless, my counsel's part 
will be the least : for I shall not, by the grace of God 
trick up an innocency with cavillations, but plainly and 
ingeniously (as your lordships know my manner is) de- 
clare what I know or remember. 

'^ Thirdly, That according to the course of justice, I may 
be allowed to except to the witnesses brought against me ; 
and to move questions to your lordships for their cross- 
examinations ; and likewise to produce my own witnesses 
for the discovery of the truth. 

'' And Lastly, That if there be any more petitions of 
like nature, that your lordships would be pleased not to 
take any prejudice or apprehension of any number or 
muster of them, especially against a judge, that makes 
two thousand orders and decrees in a year (not to speak 
of the courses that have been taken for hunting out com- 
plaints against me), but that I may answer them according 
to the rules of justice, severally and respectively. 

" These requests, I hope, appear to your lordships no 
other than just. And so thinking myself happy to have 
so noble peers and reverend prelates to discern of my 
cause ; and desiring no privilege of greatness for subter- 
fuge of guiltiness, but meaning, as I said, to deal fairly 
and plainly with your lordships, and to put myself upon 
your honours and favours ; I pray God to bless your 
counsels and persons. And rest," etc. (Works, vol. iii., 
p. 182.) 

It may thus be seen that Bacon resolved at once upon 
his defence. But this was just what was not wanted. 
Nor did Buckingham purpose to have it made. He 
doubtless feared the disclosures which it was likely to 
bring. The mentioned interview between Williams, 
Buckingham, and the king must have occurred following 
this communication to the Lords, as Williams there speaks 
of Bacon's expressed intention to defend himself. On 
April 10th he made his will and composed the following 
notable prayer, which, Mr. Spedding thinks, could not 
have been done later than the 18th, and which was found 
among his papers. 

*' Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from 
my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. 



LIFE OF BACON. 279 

Thou (0 Lord) soundest and searchest the depths and 
secrets of all hearts ; thou knowledgest the upright of 
heart, thou judgest the hypocrit, thou ponderest men's 
thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their 
intentions as with a line, vanity and crooked wdys cannot 
be hid from thee. 

''Eemember (0 Lord) how thy servant hath walked 
before thee : remember what I have first sought, and 
what hath been principal in mine intentions. I have 
loved thy assemblies, I have mourned for the divisions of 
thy Church, I have delighted in the brightness of thy 
sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted 
in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might 
have the first and the latter rain ; and that it might stretch 
her branches to the seas and to the floods. The state and 
bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in 
mine eyes : I have hated all cruelty and hardness of 
heart : I have (though in a despised weed) procured the 
good of all men. If any have been mine enemies, I 
thought not of them ; neither hath the sun almost set 
upon miy displeasure ; but I have been as a dove, free 
from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures have 
been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have 
sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have 
found thee in thy temples. 

"Thousand have been my sins, and ten thousand my 
transgressions ; but thy sanctifications have remained 
with me, and my heart, through thy grace, hath been an 
unquenched coal upon thy altar. Lord, my strength, 
I have since my youth met with thee in all my ways, by 
thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable chastise- 
ments, and by thy most visible providence. As thy 
favours have increased upon me, so have thy corrections ; 
so as thou hast been always near me, Lord ; and ever as 
my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from 
thee have pierced me ; and when I have ascended before 
men, I have descended in humiliation before thee. 

*' And now when I thought most of peace and honour, 
thy hand is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me, ac- 
cording to thy former loving-kindness, keeping me still 
in thy fatherly school, not as a bastard, but as a child. 
Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are 
more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no 



280 LIFE OF BACON". 

proportion to thy mercies ; for what are the sands of the 
sea, to the sea, earth, heavens ? and all these are nothing 
to thy mercies. 

" Besides my innnmerable sins, I confess before thee, 
that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy 
gifts and graces, which I have neither put in a napkin, 
nor put it (as I ought) to exchangers, where it might have 
made best profit ; but misspent it in things for which I 
was least fit ; so as I may truly say, my soul hath been a 
stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. Be merciful unto 
me (0 Lord) for my Saviour's sake, and receive me into 
thy bosom or guide me in thy ways." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vii., p. 229.) 

He seems to have been active in the preparation for his 
defence until April 16th, when he was sent for by the 
king. He now at once, as was his method in any impor- 
tant matter, prepared minutes for the interview, in which 
he says : " The law of nature teaches me to speak in my 
own defence. With respect to this charge of bribery, I am 
as innocent as any born upon St. Innocent's day : I never 
had bribe or reward in my eye or thought when pronounc- 
ing sentence or order. If, however, it is absolutely neces- 
sary, the king's will shall be obeyed. I am ready to make 
an oblation of myself to the king, in whose hands I am as 
clay, to be made a vessel of honour or dishonour. " ( Works, 
vol. i., p. 92. And upon this point see Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vii., pp, 235-39.) On p. 235 he says : 

" There be three degrees or cases of bribery charged or 
supposed in a judge : 

" ]. The first, of bargain or contract for reward to per- 
vert justice, pe7ulente lite. 

" 2. The second, where the judge conceives the cause to 
be at an end by the information of the party, or otherwise, 
and usetli not such diligence as he ought to inquire of it. 

"3. And the third, when the cause is really ended, and it 
is sme frail de without relation to any precedent promise. 

"Now if I might see the particulars of my charge, 
I should deal plainly with your Majesty, in whether of 
these degrees every particular case falls. 

" But for the first of them, I take myself to be as inno- 
cent as any born upon St. Innocent's day, in my heart. 

" For the second, I doubt in some particulars I may be 
faulty. 



LIFE OF BACON". 281 

**And for the last, I conceive it to be no fault, but 
therein I desire to be better informed, that I may be twice 
penitent, once for the fact, and again for the error. For 
I had rather be a briber, than a defender of bribes. 

" I must likewise confess to your Majesty that at new- 
year's tides and likewise at my first coming in (which 
was as it were my wedding), I did not so precisely as 
perhaps I ought examine whether those that presented me 
had causes before me, yea or no." 

And from notes, p. 237, we have : " In the next place, 
I am to make an oblation of myself into his Majesty's 
hands : that as I wrote to him, I am as clay in his hands, 
his Majesty may make a vessel of honour or dishonour of 
me, as I find favour in his eyes, and that I submit myself 
wholly to his grace and mercy, and to be governed botli 
in my cause and fortunes by his direction : knowing that 
his heart is inscrutable for good. Only I may express 
myself thus far. That my desire is that the thread or line 
of my life may be no longer than the thread or line of my 
service : 1 mean that I may be of use to your Majesty in 
one kind or another." 

From this moment his defence was abandoned, and he 
was thus as effectually bound as if in chains. Did the 
king as an inducement to this step, as suggested by Will- 
iams, promise financial or other aid in his philosophy? 
See ^Yilliams' advice concerning this. \Yhat particular 
influences were brought to bear we shall probably never 
fully know, though iSounets 88, 89, and 90 will yield us 
light. He says : 

" When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light. 
And place my merit in the eye of scorn, 
Upon thy side against myselP I'll fight, 
And prov^e thee virtuous, though thou art foresworn. 
With mine own weakness being best acquainted. 
Upon thy part I can set down a storj^ 
Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted ; 
That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory : 
And I by this will be a gainer too ; 
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, 
The injuries that to myself I do, 
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. 
Such is my love, to thee I so belong, 
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong." ^ 

^ At the time of Bacon's troubles Shakespeare had been some five 
years in his grave. Let the would-be doubting reader here exclude 



282 LIFE OF BACON". 

" Say that thou didsfc forsake me for some fault. 
And I will comment upon that offence : 
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, 
Against thy reasons making no defence. 
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill 
To set a form upon desired change, 
As I'll myself disgrace : knowing thy will, 
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange ; 
Be absent from thy walks ; and in my tongue 
Thy sw^eet beloved name no more shall dwell. 
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong. 
And haply of our old acquaintance tell. 
For thee, against myself I'll vow debate ; 
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate." 

" Then, hate me when thou wilt ; if ever now : 
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross. 
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow. 
And do not drop in for an after-loss. 
Ah ! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow. 
Come in the rearward of a conquer 'd woe , 
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow. 
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. 
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me lost, 
When other petty griefs have done their spite ; 
But in the onset come : so shall I taste 
At iirst the very worst of fortune's might ; 
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so." 

Later, to Buckingham, he writes : '' My offences I have 
myself recorded ; wherein I studied as a good confessant, 
guiltiness and not excuse ; and therefore I hope it leaves 
me fair to the King's grace, and will turn many men's 
hearts to me. As for my debts, I showed them to your 
Lordship when you saw the little house and the gallery, 
besides a little wood or desert, which you saw not."' 

from consideration what has been said of the sonnets touching the 
Tables of the Ins'.auration, p. 97, touching the Epitaph, p. 115, touch- 
ing a Protestant heir to the throne of England, p. 150, touching the 
Will of the queen, p. 205, and even then tell us how, without stulti- 
fying common sense, he may avoid the Baconian theory as to those 
now to be reviewed. 

^ Did Bacon now entertain some such notions as he puts into the 
mouth of Prince Henry the Fifth in the play of Henry IV., part 1, 
Act i., so. 2, p. 177, where we have : 

" So, when this loose behavior I throw off, 
And pay the debt I never promised, 
By how much better than my word I am, 
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes ; 



LIFE OF BACON". 283 

(Bacon's Letters, yoI. vii., p. 296.) And in a still later 
paper, prepared for an interview with Buckingham, and 
which, by reason of its importance, we give in full, he 
says : 

" My Lord Marquis : Afflictions are truly called 
trials. Trials of a man's self, and trials of friends. For 
the first, I am not guilty to myself' of any unworthiness, 
except perhaps too much softness in the beginning of my 
troubles.^ But since, I praise G-od I have not lived like a 
drone nor like a mal-content, nor like a man confused ; 
but though the world hath taken her talent from me, yet 
God's talent I put to use. 

" For trial of friends, he cannot have many that hath 
chosen to rely upon one. So that is in a small room, end- 
ing in yourself. My suit therefore to you is. that you 
would now upon this vouchsafed conference open yourself 
to me, whether I stand in your favour and affection as I 
have done, and if there be any alteration, what is the 
cause, and if none, what effects I may expect for the 
future of your friendship and favour, my state being not 
unknown to you. 

*' The reasons, why I should doubt of your Lordship's 
coolness towards me or falling from me, are either out of* 

And like bright metal on a sullen ground, 
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault. 
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes, 
Than that which liath no foil to set it off. 
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill. 
Redeeming time, when men think least I will." 

' As to this expression " to myself," as here used, we from The 
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 120, quote thus : " Indeed, I cannot commend 
my life, for I am conscious to myself of many failings therein." 
In Hamlet, Act iii., sc, 3, p. 290, we have : 

" Most necessary 'tis, that we forget 
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt : 
What to ourselves in passion we propose. 
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose," 

'^ Is not this thought in keeping with, and in the direct line of, 
these sonnets ? 

3 This use of the words " out of," as " out of judgment," " out 
of hope," "out of doubt," "out of countenance," etc., occur 
throughout this literature. In Othello, Act iv., sc, 1, p. 515, we 
have : 

" Gas. This is the monkey's own giving out : she is persuaded I 



284 LIFE OF BACON". 

judgment and discourse, or out of experience and some- 
what that I find. My judgment telleth that when a man 
is out of sight and out of use, it is a nobleness somewhat 
above this age to continue a constant friend : That some 
that are thought to have your ear or more love me not, 
and may either disvalue me, or distaste your. Lordship 
with me. Besides, your Lordship hath now so many 
either new-purchased friends or reconciled enemies, as 
there is scarce room for an old friend specially set aside. 
And lastly, I may doubt that that for which I was fittest, 
which was to carry things suavibus juodis, and not to 
bristle or undertake or give ventrous counsels, is out of 
fashion and request. 

'* As for that I find, your Lordship knoweth as well as 
I what promises you made me, and iterated them both by 
message and from your mouth, consisting of three things, 
the pardon of the whole sentence, some help for my debts, 
and an annual [pension] which your Lordship ever set at 
£2000 as obtained, and £3000 in hope.^ Of these being 
promises undesired as well as favours unreserved, there is 
effected only the remission of the fine, and the pardon 
now stayed. From me I know there hath proceeded 
nothing that may cause the change. These T lay before 
you, desiring to know what I may hope for ; for hopes 
are racks, ■•' and your Lordship that would not condemn 
me to the Tower I know will not condemn me to the rack. 

" I have, though it be a thing trivial, and that at a 
coronation one might have it for five marks and after a 
Parliament for nothing, yet have great reason to desire it, 
specially being now stirred. Two chiefly ; first because 
I have been so safted, and now it is time there were an 
end. Secondly, because I mean to live a retired life, and 
so cannot be at hand to shake off every clamour. 

" For any offence the Parliament should take ; it is 
rather honour, that in a thing wherein the king is abso- 
lute, yet he will not interpose in that which the Parlia- 

will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my 
promise." 

^ We may here see methods taken to induce Bacon to abandon his 
defence, including a promise of pardon " of the whole sentence." 
"^ " Bass. Let me choose ; 

For, as I am, I live upon the rack." 

— Merchant of Venice, x\ct iii., sc. 2, p. 76. 



LIFE OF BACON". 285 

menb hath handled, and the king hath already restored 
judicature, after a long intermission, but for matter of 
his grace, his Majesty shall have reason to keep it entire. 

" I do not think any except a Turk or Tartar would 
wish to have another chop out of me. But tlie best is, it 
will be found there is a time for envy and a time for pity, 
and cold fragments will not serve if the stomach be on 
edge.^ For me, if they judge by that which is past, they 
judge of the weather of this year by an almanack of the 
old year ; they rather repent of that they ha\e done, and 
think they have but served the turns of the few." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., pp. 312-15.) 

Sonnet 118 — see p. 274 — was doubtless written after he 
found himself within the trap. 

Eeflecting upon what he had agreed to do as to his de- 
fence, after the mentioned interview with the king, he in 
Sonnet 113 says : 

" Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind. 
And that wliicli governs me to go about 
Doth part his function, and is partly blind ; 
Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; 
For it no form delivers to the heart 
Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch : 
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, 
Nor his own vision holds wdiat it doth catch ; 
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight. 
The most sweet favour, or deformed 'st creature, 
The mountain or the sea, the day or night, 
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature : 
Incapable of more, replete with you. 
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue." - 

lie here tells the king that by being true to him, he 
makes his own mind untrue, and so stultifies it that it 
seems to receive or retain his features only. What known 
facts in the life of William Shakespeare could have called 
to expression these feelings and in the line here portrayed? 

Bacon, as we have seen, was ever of the opinion that the 
crown should from the king's own errors be shielded, and 

^ Note the use of this word " edge" in the plays. In Hamlet, Act 
iii., sc. 1, p. 274, we have : 

" Good gentlemen, give him a further edge. 
And drive his purpose on to these delights." 

^ Promus, 1151. (I was dumb and was cast down, I held my 
peace even from good ; and my sorrow was renewed.) 



286 LIFE OF BACON". 

this though at the sacrifice, if need be, of any of his min- 
isters. 

Before these troubles, and even as early as 1605, he in 
the Advancement of Learning says : 

'* Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been 
incident to learned men, which is, that they have esteemed 
the preservation, good, and honour of their countries or 
masters before their own fortunes or safeties. For so said 
Demosthenes unto the Athenians : ' If it please you to 
note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I 
should grow great amongst you, and you become little 
amongst the G-recians : but they be of that nature, as they 
are sometimes not good for me to give, but are always 
good for you to follow.' And so ISeneca, after he had 
consecrated that Quinquennium Neronis to the eternal 
glory of learned governors, held on his honest and loyal 
course of good and free counsel, after his master grew 
extremely corrupt in his government. Neither can this 
point otherwise be ; for learning endueth men's minds 
with a true sense of the frailty of their persons, the 
casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul 
and vocation : so that it is impossible for them to esteem 
that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true and 
worthy end of their being and ordainment ; and therefore 
are desirous to give their account to Grod, and so likewise 
to their masters under God (as kings and the states that 
they serve) in these words ; ' Ecce tibi lucrefeci,' and 
not ' Ecce mihi lucrefeci ;' whereas the corrupter sort of 
mere politicians, that have not their thoughts established 
by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor 
ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things to 
themselves, and thrust themselves into the center of the 
world, as if all lines should meet in them and their for- 
tunes ; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the 
ship of state, so tliey may save themselves in the cockboat 
of their own fortunes : whereas men that feel the weight 
of duty,^ and know the limits of self-love, use to make 

' Already have we called attention to the emphasis placed in these 
writings upon the subject of duty, and in Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 
247, Polonius is made to say : 

" I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, 
Both to my God, and to my gracious king ; 



LIFE OF BACO>^. 287 

good their places and duties, tliongh with peril ; and if 
they stand in seditions and violent alterations, it is rather 
the reverence which many times both adverse parts do give 
to honesty, than any versatile advantage of their own 
carriage. But for this point of tender sense, and fast 
obligation of duty which learning doth endue the mind 
withal, howsoever fortune may tax it, and many in the 
depth of their corrupt principles may despise it, yet it 
will receive an open allowance, and therefore, needs the 
less disproof or excursion." (Works, vol. i., p. 168.) 

And thus in the abandonment of his defence may we 
see that Bacon was true to his own teachings. But his 
feelings touching its effects upon his child, his philoso- 
phy, may be somewhat realized in Sonnets 124 and 125, 
p. 99. 

The words ''suborned informer," used in the second 
of the mentioned sonnets,.-probably refer to Lionel Cran- 
field, to be referred to hereafter, and made Lord Treasurer 
in October of this year, or possibly to one Churchill, who 
is said to have been an infamous forger of chancery orders, 
and as such dismissed from the Chancery Court for extor- 
tion. 

These persons interested themselves in hunting out 
charges against him. The word " oblation" in this son- 
net is Bacon's word to the king in the mentioned inter- 
view, and used in the same sense. The day following the 
interview, and on April 17th, the House convened, and 
which had adjourned March 27th for an Easter vacation. 
A brief account of the king's interview with Bacon was 
then given, and was ordered to be entered upon the 
journals of the House. Coke is said to have been now 
most jubilant in liis ridicule about " Instauratio Magna." 
The true " Instauratio" was to restore laws, etc. The next 
day Bacon wrote thus to Buckingham : 

" My very good Lord : I hear yesterday was a day of 
very great honour to his majesty, which I do congratu- 
late. I hope, also, his majesty may reap honour out of 
my adversity, as he hath done strength out of my pros- 
perity. His majesty knows best his own ways ; and for 

And I do think (or else this brain of mine 
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure 
As it hath us'd to do) that I have found 
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy." 



288 LIFE OF BACON. 

me to despair of liim, were a sin not to be forgiven. I 
thank God, I have overcome the bitterness of this cup by 
Christian resolution, so that worldly matters are but mint 
and cumin. God ever preserve you." (Works, vol. iii., 
p. 159.) 

The Lords by means of their committees now took the 
matter from the Commons, the original accusers, and 
thus, as it were, became the prosecutors. The king's 
son, Prince Charles, was on the 22d entrusted by Bacon 
with a letter to the House of Lords, in which he con- 
sented to abandon his defence, indicating in it, and, what 
had doubtless been assured him by the king, that he hoped 
the loss of the seals only would be the penalty. (Works, 
vol. ]., p. 94.) On the morning of the 24th the king ad- 
dressed the House in a speech which showed a full inten- 
tion to conform to the popular humor, and in the after- 
noon the prince presented the"mentioned letter by Bacon 
of the 22d. 

Bacon was now within the trap. The Lords influenced 
not simply by Coke and Southampton, but by that element 
of which Somerset had been the foreground, purposed tliat 
his submission should be in their own way. Buckingham 
had even thus early, we think, his eye upon York House. 
Church in his Life of Bacon, p. 140, says : " Buckingham 
kept up appearances by saying a word for him from time 
to time in Parliament, which he knew would be useless, 
and which he certainly took no measures to make effective. 
It is sometimes said that Buckingham never knew what 
dissimulation was. He was capable, at least, of the per- 
fidity and cowardice of utter selfishness. Bacon's con- 
spicuous fall diverted men's thoughts from the far more 
scandalous wickedness of the great favorite." As to his 
character and influence over the king, see Hume, vol. iv., 
pp. 65-73. 

But it was now too late for Bacon to retrace his steps. 
" No word of confession of any corruption in the Lord 
Chancellor's submission," said Southampton, and who 
seemed as if itching for investigation. He says : " It 
stands with the justice and honour of this House not to 
proceed without the party's particular confession or to 
have the party to liear the charge and we to hear the 
party's answers." But, said Lord Pembrook, " Shall the 
Great Seal come to the bar?" The Lords now required 



LIFE OF BACON". 289 

that the Chancellor be particularly charged, that he be 
required to make specific answers to each, and witli all 
convenient speed. Tliis answer Bacon at once prepared, 
and caused to be delivered to the Lords April oOth, and 
which the reader should examine with some care. He 
saw what they purposed to have, and so gave it them. 
Some of these gifts were New Year's presents from wealthy 
people. They were made mostly after the causes were ter- 
minated, and in which case Bacon says he regarded it no 
fault. Thrs had been a custom with the early chancellors 
and so until his day. Even in the Egerton case it seems 
that the award had been made, though not published at 
the receiving of the present. 

Church in his work, p. 137, says : " Yet it is strange 
that they should not have observed that not a single charge 
of a definitely unjust decision was brought, at any rate 
was prov^ed against him. He had taken money tliey 
argued, and therefore he must be corrupt ; but if he had 
taken money to pervert judgment, some instance of the 
iniquity would certainly have been brought forward and 
proved. There is no such instance to be found ; though, 
of course, tliere were plenty of dissatisfied suitors ; of 
course the men who had paid their money and lost then- 
cause were furious. But in vain do we look for any case 
of proved injustice. The utmost that can be said is that 
in some cases lie showed favour in pushing forward and 
expediting suits. So that the real charge against Bacon 
assumes, to us who have not to deal practically with dan- 
gerous abuses, but to judge conduct and character, a differ- 
ent comi)lexion. Instead of being the wickedness of per- 
verting justice and selling his judgments for bribes, it 
takes the shape of allow^ing and sharing in a dishonorable 
and mischievous system of payment for services, which 
could not fail to bring with it temptation and discredit, 
and in wdiich fair reward could not be distinguished from 
unlawful gain. Such a system it was high time to stop ; 
and in this rough and harsh way, which also satisfied some 
personal enmities, it was stopped. We may put aside for 
good the charge on which he was condemned, and which 
in words he admitted — of being corrupt as a judge. His 
real fault — and it was a great one — was that he did not in 
time open his eyes to tiie wrongness and evil, patent to 
every one, and to himself as soon as pointed out, of the 
10 



290 LIFE OF BACON". 

traditional fashion in his court of eking out by irregular 
gifts the salary of such an office as his." ^ 

It was now expected that he would come to the bar of 
the House to receive his sentence, but he was found too 
ill to leave his bed. It was thought, indeed, that he wonld 
not survive the struggle, and on May 3d the Lords pro- 
ceeded to fix the sentence in his absence. Every extremity 
was talked of. Coke, whose hand had been prominent in 
every feature of the case, cited in the Commons precedents 
where judges had been hanged for bribery. To this the 
Lords would not listen. Lord Arundel said : " His offence 
foul ; his confession pitiful. Life not to be touched." 
Southampton asked that he should at least be degraded 
from the peerage, and asked whether 'Hie whom this 
House thinks unfit to be a constable should come to the 
Parliament." 

The sentence fixed upon was a fine of £40,000 and 
imprisonment in the Tower during the king's pleasure. 
He was to be incapable of any office, place, or employment 
in the State or Commonwealth. He was never to sit in 
Parliament, nor come within the verge of the court. This 
last prevision excluded him from London. He had been 
induced to abandon his defence in order to stay disclosures 
and to shield the king, and this was the result. - 

Having observed the feelings manifested toward him, 
he the day previous to the sentence wrote to the king 
asking that he, Buckingham, and the Prince, would unite 
to avert the sentence further than the loss of the seal, 
and he concludes the letter thus : 

" This is my last suit that I shall make to your majesty 
in this business, prostrating myself at your mercy-seat, 
after fifteen jears' service, wherein I have served your 
majesty in my poor endeavours, with an entire heart. 
And, as I presume to say unto your majesty, am still a 
virgin/ for matters that concern your person or crown, 

^ As to great persons, Bacon in liis essay entitled " Of Great 
Place" says: "For they are the first to find their own griefs, 
though they be the last to find their own faults." 

^ Tills permitting Parliament to chastise a minister of the crown 
was all important upon the question of civil liberty. Tlie crown 
could never after be regarded as the sun of the governmental 
system. 

^ In many places in his works Bacon refers to himself as a virgin. 



LIFE OF BACON". 291 

and now only craving that after eight steps of honour, 
I be not precipitated altogether. 

" But, because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give 
bribes, I will go further, and present your majesty with 
bribe ;* for if your majesty give me peace and leisure, and 
Grod give me life, I will present you with a good history 
of Eugland, and a better digest of your laws. And so 
concluding with my prayers, I rest Clay in your majesty's 
hands." (Works, vol. iii., p. 183.) 

The king made no effort either to stay or to mitigate 
the sentence, but seemed now inclined to shun him, and 
concerning which, he in Sonnet 49 says : 

" Against that time, if ever that time come, 
Wlien I shall see thee frown on my defects, 
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, 
Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects ;- 
Against that time, when thou shalt strangely pass, 
And scarcely greet me with that snn, thine eye ; 
When love, converted from the thiug it was, 
Shall reasons find of settled gravity ; — 
Against that time do I ensconce me here 
Within the knowledge of mine own desert. 
And tliis my hand against myself uprear, 
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part : 
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, 
Since, why to love, I can allege no cause." 

Bacon now in Sonnet 111, as in many places in his 
writings, laments his entry into public life. He says : 

" O ! for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
The guilty goddess of ni}^ harmful deeds. 
That did not better for my life provide, 
Than public means, which public manners breeds. 
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,^ 
And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

^ We think this shows how little he felt himself guilty of the 
offence charged. 

2 We understand him here to say that he came to this audit on the 
king's own advice. Note in these sonnets, and everywhere in these 
writings, a kind of distinctive use of the w^ord " against. " Bacon 
says : " It is usually practised, to set trees that require much sun 
upon walls against the south ; as apricots, peaches, plums, vines, 
figs, and the like." (Sub. 480 of Bacon's Natural History.) 

* And what brand, please, upon the name of William Shake- 
speare ? 



292 LIFE OF BACON. 

Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd, 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eysell 'gainst my strong infection : 
No bitterness that I will bitter think. 
Nor double penance, to correct correction. 
Pity me, then, dear friend ; and I assure ye. 
Even that your pity is enough to cure me." 

AVilliams, the giver of the crafty advice against Bacon, 
now steps into his shoes as Chancellor of England. Bacon's 
state of healthy coupled with his now treatment by the 
king, finds expression in Sonnets 140, 147, and 148. He 

says : 

" Be wise as thou art cruel ; do not press 
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain ; 
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express 
The manner of my pity-wanting pain. 
If I might teach thee wit, better it were, 
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so ; 
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near. 
No news but health from their physicians know : 
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad. 
And in my madness might speak ill of thee : 
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad. 
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. 
That I may not be so, nor thou belied, 
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide." * 

" My love is as a fever, longing still 
For that which longer nurselh the disease ; 
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, 
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.^ 
My reason, the physician to my love, 
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept. 
Hath left me ; and I desperate now approve. 
Desire is deatli, which physic did except. 
Past cure I am, now reason is past care. 
And frantic mad with ever-more unrest : 
My thoughts and m}^ discourse as madmen's are. 
At random from the truth vainly express 'd ; 
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, 
Yf ho art as black as hell, as dark as night." 

^ Promus, 594. {Hold your friend tiglitly hy the face.) 
2 Though a man of firm and unyielding convictions, Lord Bacon 
had slill an mibounded desire to please and to be of service to others. 
The importance which he claiined seems chiefly for his work, not 
for his person. He did not permit himself easily to take offence, 
and his nature seems to have possessed little of the elements of 
revenge. His ends he sought to move chielly through others, mak- 
ing them pliant instruments by yielding to tlieir humors and foibles. 



LIFE OF BACON". ^93 

** O me ! what eyes hath love put in my head, 
Which have no correspondence with true sight ! 
Or, if they liave, where is my judgment fled. 
That censures falsely what they see aright ? 
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, 
What means the world to say it is not so ? 
If it be not, then love doth well denote 
Love's eye is not so true as all men's no. 
How can it ? O ! how can Love's eye be true, 
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears ? 
No marvel, then, though I mistake my view ; 
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears. 
O, cunning Love ! with tears thou keep'st me blind, 
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find." 

As Bacon's feelings must have vent, and as he would 
not make them public, so he talked them into these 
sonnets, as well as into Defoe articles, yet to be re- 
viewed. We do not say that these sonnets came to the 
king's eyes, though some of them probably did. On 
account of Bacon's health his imprisonment was delayed 
until May 31st. But no sooner had he gone to the Tower 
than he wrote thus to Buckingham : 

" Good my Lord : Procure the warrant for my dis- 
charge this day. Death, I thank God, is so far from being 
unwelcome to me, as I have called for it (as Christian 
resolution would permit) any time these two months. 
But to die before the time of his majesty's grace, and in 
this disgraceful place, is even the worst that could be ; 
and when I am dead,^ he is gone that was always in one 
tenor, a true and perfect servant to his master, and one 
that was never author of any immoderate, no, nor unsafe, 
no (I will say it), not unfortunate counsel ; and one that 
no temptation could ever make other than a trusty, and 
honest, and Christ-loving friend to your lordship ; and 
howsoever I acknowledge the sentence just, and for refor- 
mation sake fit, the justest chancellor that hath been in 
the five changes since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time. God 
bless and prosper your lordship, whatever becomes of me. 
Your lordship's true friend," etc. (Works, vol. iii., p. 
169.) 

Had not the peremptory first line of this letter been 
complied with, we judge that an explosion would now have 
occurred. But it was at once obeyed, as may be seen by 

' Please see in this connection Sonnet 71. 



294 LIFE OF BACON. 

his letter to Prince Charles the next day, Jane 1st, and in 
whom, for his philosophy, he now hegan to centre hopes 
for the future. (Works, vol. iii., p. 183 ) 

At Buckingham's first appearance at court, it is said 
that he was so poor that he had to borrow money with 
which to buy himself an outfit. Touching the foregoing 
letter and this thought we quote Sonnet 66. He says : 

" Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry ; — 
As to behold desert a begffar born. 
And needy nothing trimni'd in jollity, 
And purest faitli unhappily foresworn, 
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, 
And maiden virtue rudely strunipeted, 
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, 
And strength by limping' sway disabled, 
And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, 
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, 
And captive good attending captain ill : 
Tir'd with all these, from tliese would I be gone. 
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.'* 

" Love" as here used refers, wo think, to his literary 
work, to his philosophy, to his Miranda of The Tempests. 
This it was that gave 

" An undergoing stomach, to bear up 
Against what should ensue." — Act i., sc. 2, p. 27. 

The word " thee," in Sonnet 29, also alludes, we think, 
to his philosophy. He says : 

" When, in disgrace with fortune and men's ej^es, 
I all alone be weep my outcast state. 
And tremble deaf lieaven with my bootless cries, 
And look upon myself, and curse my fate ; 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, 
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope. 
With what I most enjoy contented least ; 
Yet in these thoughts ni3'self almost despising ; 
Haply T think on thee, and then ni}^ state, 
Like to the lark at break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate : 
For thy sweet love remember d such wealth brings. 
That then I scorn to change my state with kings." 

Sonnets 67 and 70 are in the same line. He says : 

' " Here man's power limps, as it were, with one leg." (Novum 
Organum, Aph. 49, Book 2.) 



LIFE OF BACON". 295 

" All ! wherefore with infection should he live, 
And with his presence grace impiety, 
TJiat siu bj' him advantage should achieve, 
And lace itself with his society ? 
Why should false painting imitate his cheek, 
And steal dead seeing of his living hue ? 
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek 
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true ? 
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is, 
Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins ? 
For she hath no exchequer now but his, 
And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. 
O ! him she stores, to show what wealth she had, 
In days long since, before these last so bad." 

" That thou art blam'd, shall not be thy defect, 
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; 
The ornament of beauty is suspect,^ 
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. 
So thou be good, slander doth but approve 
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time ; 
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, 
And thou present'st a pure, unstained prime. 
Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, 
Either not assail'd or victor being charg'd ; 
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, 
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged : 
If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show. 
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe." 

It is not improbable that the production of the first of 
these two sonnets may have occupied Bacon's thonglits 
while at the Tower, and his quick release may have in- 
duced him to think himself llast3^ It at least gave hope 
of being now restored to favor, or at least to favors, for on 
June 4th he wrote thus to the king : 

" It may please yolr most excellent Majesty : I 
humbly thank your majesty for my liberty, without which 
timely grant, any further grace would have come too late. 
But your majesty, that did shed tears in the beginning of 
my troubles, will, I hope, shed the dew of your grace and 
goodness upon me in the end. Let me live to serve you, 

^ This distinctive and unusual use of the word " suspect" may be 
found in many phtces in Bacon's writings. He says that " I do in 
no sort prejudge, being ignorant of the cause, but take him as the 
law takes him for a suspect." (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 218.) In 
his essay on " Praise" he says : " There be so many false points of 
praise, that one may justly hold it a suspect," 



296 LIFE OF BACON". 

else life is but the shadow of death to your majesty's most 
devoted servant." (Works, vol. iii., p. 184.) 

A glimpse of this king's methods with Bacon, wherein 
he procured the abandonment of his defence, may, we 
think, be seen in the foregoing letter. See also his hypo- 
critical methods and tears upon Somerset's arrest, and 
when he had gone he said, " Now the J)eel go with thee 
for I will never see thy face any more." (Knight, vol. 
iii., p. 300.) 

Knight here says : " The king had a loathsome way of 
lolling his arms about his favorites' necks, and kissing 
them ; and in this posture the messenger found the king 
with Somerset, saying, ' When sliall I see thee again ? ' " ' 
It was Bacon's custom to couch his feelings in words 
during or near the transit of events ; and so as to the king's 
expressed sorrow at the beginning of his troubles, he in 
Sonnet 35 says : 

" No more be griev'cl at that which thou hast done : 

Koses have thorns, and silver fountains mud ; 

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and snn, 

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. 

All men make faults, and even I in this, 

Authorizing thy trespass with compare ; 

Myself corrupting, salving th}^ amiss, 

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are : 

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense, 

(Thy adverse party is thy advocate,) 

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence. 

Such civil war is in my love and hate, 

That I an accessory needs must be 

To that sweet thief, which sourly robs from me." 

And so in the play of The Tempest, Act v., sc. 1, p. 92, 
does he, as Prosper o, say : 

" Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury 
Do I take part : The rarer action is 
In virtue tlian in vengeance : they being penitent, 
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
Not a frown further." ^ 

Yet in the previous sonnet. Sonnet 34-, he says : 

' See please in this connection Sonnet 131. Also see Sonnet 120. 

2 Promus, 62. (He is the best asserter [of the liberty] of his 
mind who bursts the chains that gall his breast, and at the same 
moment ceases to grieve.) In his JEssay on Revenge, Bacon says : 
" That which is past is gone, and irrevocable ; and wise men liavo 
enough to do with things present and to come ; therefore they do 
but tritle with themseh^es that labour in past matters." 



LIFE OF BACO^. 297 

" Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, 
And malie me travel forth without my cloak, 
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, 
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke ? 
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, 
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face ; 
For no man well of such a salve can speak. 
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace ; 
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief ; 
Though thou repent, j^et I have still the loss : 
Th' otfender's sorrow lends but weak relief 
To him that bears the strong offence's cross. 
Ah ! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, 
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds." 

As to the word '' cloak" here used, we in the A. D. B. 
Mask, p. 6C) (really 76, the pagination of this work being 
like the Great Folio), have : "But perad venture thou 
wilt object and Say, a Courtier must have a cloake against 
every wiude that bloweth : Indeede I heare it, and it grives 
me that I heare it, yet I can hardly, and in truth very 
hardly, denie and gainsay it. For Courtierrs had neede to 
apply and conlirme themselves, to all occasions, and to 
the conditions of them with whome they live ; to bee subtill 
and craftie both in tlieir Genius and disposition, and more 
mutable and variable than Proteus himselfe." 

What Bacon thought of gifts and bribes in 1619, and 
so before his fall, may be seen in several places in the 
mentioned work. On p. 148 (omitting its mode of spell- 
ing) we have : 

" Wherefore let the Courtier use sometime this benefi- 
cence and liberality, especially towards those whom he 
knows he hath offended and whom he is persuaded his 
riches and possessions may very much resist and with- 
stand ; questionless, if there be any hammer or wedge 
wherewith to pierce, penetrate, or cleave in sunder the 
most obdurate and stubborn heart of man, 'tis this, namely. 
Gifts or Rewards. Yet here again it is not idle, but 
worth the questioning, whether the Courtier himself may 
also receive gifts again, we may answer with Antoninus 
the Emperour, Neg omnia, neque quouis tempore^ neg ah 
omnihus, Neither may lie take all things, 7wr at all 
times, nor from all men, hut each of these discreetly and 
ivisely ; For, as in all other matters, two extremes are to 
be avoided, namely, Excess and Defect, even so it is here, 
for the extremity of defect, is, not to receive aught from 



298 LIFE OF BACON". 

any man, which were very inhumane and uncivil ; and tlie 
extremity of excess, is, always to receive all whatsoever is 
proffered, which is most vile and avaricious/ 

" Those Courtiers are to be highly commended, who re- 
ceive small rewards, and that very sparingly from men of 
mean estate or condition, especially for the propagation 
and necessary execution of equity and Justice, but let 
them rather with a free heart, and a grateful mind, accept 
of what is, for that cause, conferred upon them by their 
Prince himself : But those Courtiers are contrariwise most 
worthy detestation and bitter execration, which do sell 
Justice and Truth for gold and gain." 

And on pp. 135-37 we have : 

" Moreover, let the Courtier attempt all his enterprises 
and employments smoothly, currently, and privately, 
without any the least rumour, or reports, of what he in- 
tends to do, let him I say^ use all diligence, hate all arro- 
gance, and in the very act itself, be as private and silent 
as a man asleep. The reason hereof why thus he shall 
perform his actions, I have already declared which here 
(with the reader's patience) I shut up in silence.^ I only 

^ See p. 281. Thisuseof the words "excess" and " defect" is strictly 
Baconian, and found in Bacon's intwpretation of tiie fable of " Scjlla 
and Icarus ; or, Tlie Middle Way." He says : " The parable is easy 
and vulgar : for the way of virtue lies in a direct path between 
excess and defect. Neither is it a wonder that Icarus perished by 
excess, seeing that excess for the most part is the peculiar fault of 
youth, as defect is of age ; and yet of two evil and hurtful ways, 
youth commonly makes choice of the better, defect being- always 
accounted worst ; for whereas excess contains some sparks of mag- 
nanimity, and, like a bird, claims kindred of the heavens, defect 
only like a base worm crawls upon the earth." 

2 This expression, " I say," is so thrown in in every phase of these 
writings as to make it a distinguishing mark. 

^ I am very desirous that the reader shall here turn to his Addi- 
son, vol. ii., p. 96, and read the article upon tlie subject of silence. 
Note also the emphasis placed upon the subject in' the plays. In 
Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 175, we have : 

" Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy : I were but little 
happy, if I could say how much." 

In Twelfth Night, Act ii., sc. 5, p. 393, we have : 

" Fab. Though our silence be drawn from us with cords, yet 
peace "* 



And in iict i., sc. 3, p. 354, we have : 

" What else may hap, to time I will commit 
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit." 



LIFE OF BACON". 299 

add thus much and it is indeed a shame to be spoken ; 
yet such is the property and ungodly gaise of most Courts, 
that gifts and bribing presents, are the present and chief 
preparations to remove all the rubs,^ and to make the way 
plain to grace, favour, and preferment. But the truly 
noble and illustrious Courtier which hath learned by virtue 
(a better way than by fawning favour, and insinuated 
friendship) to rise and raise himself to honour and dig- 
nity, were better to want both place and grace, than to 
acquire or desire his honour, by gifts and rewards yet 'tis 
true which Salust that most grave and learned Historian 
says, especially of the court of Rome. Rome omnia esse 
venalia. That all tilings are set to sale at Rome, So are 
they for the most part at many other Courts, where little 
or nothing is given without Gold or Gain." 

Again as to Rome, and toward which Buckingham was 
now stoutly drifting, we have : " Even the imposition or 
laying on of hands, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost are 
sold for money ; Yea I say the very Pardon and forgive- 
ness of sins is in the Court of Rome made only a money 
matter : They which know the Court of Rojiie, and that 
monstrous great hireling of Rome himself, do know that 
I tell no fabulous fiction, but know too well to the cost of 
many of them, that he and his Courtiers are of Titus 
Vespatian'' s opinion, Lucri odorem- esse bo?ium ex re quali- 
bet : TJtat the sent and savour of gain is siveet by luhat 

^ This distinctive use of the word "rubs" is Baconian. And in 
The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 371, we have : " We have met witli some 
notable rubs already, and what are yet behind we know not ; but 
for the most part, we find it true that has beeu talked of old, A good 
man must suffer trouble. 

" Cont. You talk of rubs ; what rubs have you met withal." 
And in Henry VIH., Act ii., sc. 1, p. 252, we have : 

" Heaven has an end in all : Yet, you that hear me, 
This from a dying man receive as certain : 
Where you are liberal of 3^our loves and counsels. 
Be sure you be not loose ; for those you. make friends. 
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive 
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 
Like water from ye, never found again 
But where they mean to sink ye." 

In King Richard II., Act iii., sc. 4, p. 97, we have : 

" Queen. 'Twill make me think, the world is full of rubs, 
And that my fortune runs against the bias." 



300 LIFE OF BACOK. 

Qiieans soever it he gotten. This imposture, deceivable 
juggler, and pesantly Pedler, doth foster and favour under 
him such cunning cozeners^ and sharking shifters, as 
scarcely with good conscience or credit, do use not from 
iirine^ or stale, but even from Strumpets, Jews, Grecians, 
and Barbarians too, scrape together and even wipe their 
noses of myriads and millions of gold and treasure. I 
here omit the epicurious gluttons, the refuse offal and 
scum of all men, who when they once, like ravening 
Harpies, begin to hunger and gape after gain, will bring 
the wealthiest man (though never so honest) within the 
danger of their devillish Inquisition." 

Under this onslaught, in 1619, had the Catholics any 
interest in proving back upon Bacon, if they could, 
charges of corruption ? Did they unduly urge presents upon 
him, and for the very purpose of a trap ?' What were the 
religious convictions of those making charges against him ? 
And yet, we would go no further here, than to draw into 
view elements which we regard as involved in Bacon's fall. 

' This use of the word " cozen" will be found in each division of 
these writings, and quite often In the plays and in the Anatomy of 
Melancholy. And in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 175, we have : " This 
schoolmaster taught them the art of getting, either by violence, 
cozenage, flattering, lying, or by putting on a guise of religion ; and 
these four gentlemen had attained much of the art of their master, 
so that they could each of them have kept such a school them- 
selves." Bacon says : " Neither if Rome will cozen itself, by con- 
ceiving it may be some degree to the like toleration in England, do 
I hold it a matter of any moment, but rather a good mean to take 
off the fierceness and eagerness of the humour of Rome, and to stay 
further excommunications or interdictions for Ireland." (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. iii , p. 49, and see vol i., p. 129.) 

2 Bacon, as to this use of the word " urine," says : " Vespasian 
set a tribute upon urine. Titus his son emboldened himself to speak 
to his father of it : and represented it as a thing indign and sordid. 
Vespasian said nothing for the time ; but a while after, when it was 
forgotten, sent for a piece of silver out of the tribute money, and 
calfed to his son, bidding him smell to it ; and asked him : Whether 
he found any offence? Who said, No. Why lo (said Vespasian 
again), and yet this comes out of urine.' (Bacon's Literary Works, 
vol. ii., p. 149.) 

2 At this time, as we have seen, Spain and the Catholics were 
seeking anew the ascendancy in Christendom. The mentioned work 
was dedicated to Buckingham, who had just wedded a lad}^ of 
Catholic views, and he himself was seeking the closest alliance with 
Spain and her Catholic interests. We are giving the facts, and from 
which the reader may form his own conclusions. Note here also 
the words " sharking" and " harpies," used in the plays. 



LIFE OF BACON". 301 

He had in his opening speech as Chancellor, concerning 
the Catholics, said : " Now to some particulars and not 
many : of all other things I must begin as the king be- 
gins ; that is, with the cause of religion, and especially 
the hollow church Papists. St. Augustine hath a good 
comparison of such men, affirming, that they are like the 
roots of nettles, which themselves sting not, but yet they 
bear all the stinging leaves :' let me know of such roots, 
and I will root them out of the country." (Works, vol. 
ii., p. 47G.) In an important paper prepared by Bacon, 
concerning Great Britain and Spain during this year, he 
as to Spain, among other things, says : 

" The policy of Spain hath trodden more bloody steps 
than any state of Christendom. Look into the treatise 
and the negotiations of his ministers abroad. You shall 
find as much falsehood in these as blood in the other. He 
never paid debt so truly as to those he employed in cor- 
rupting of the ministers of other princes. He holds league 
with none but to have the nearer access to do harm by ; 
and a match in kindred shall not hinder it when he in- 
tends his advantage once. He disturbs all Christendom 
with his yearly alarms and armadas, and yet doth less 
hurt to Infidels and Pirates tlian any ; unless it be to get 
wherewithal to arm himself against other Christian princes. 
And he hath an ambition to the whole empire of Chris- 
tendom. These are motives^ wherein all Christian princes 
are interested, so as with reason they cannot oppose the 
design : nor will, I think, tiie most of them : he hath 
derived himself into such an hatred with them. 

" Let us now betwixt his Majesty and the United Prov- 
inces consider how the particular causes of both nations 
do importune us both to the undertaking thereof. Who 
hath been so thirsty of our blood as Spain ? and who hath 
spilled so much of it as he ? and who hath been so long 
our enemy? and who hath corrupted so many of our 
nation as Spain ? and that with help of the gold which 

1 In King Richard II., Act iii., sc. 2, p. «1, we have the expres- 
sion " Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies," and in The Tempest, 
Act ii., sc. 1, p. 48, we have : 

" Go?i. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, — 
Ant. He'd sow't with nettle-seed." 

2 To this Baconian use of tiie word " motives" we shall have 
occasion to allude in works yet to he reviewed. 



302 LIFE OF BACON. 

by reason of the neglect of this design he doth still enjoy, 
to attempt our weak ones and our false ones withal. 
Would you find a traitor of a sudden ? Balaam's ass will 
tell you where ; at the Spanish ambassador's door. And 
when ? When they come from mass. And otherwise 
when too ? Even when they treated the match with us. 
For his malice is so great, he cannot hide it : nor will 
God I hope suffer it."^ See this paper, Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vii., pp. 22-29. And see this work, p. 222. 

The Spanish ambassador here alluded to was doubtless 
Gondomar. Spain was now striving anew, as we shall 
see, to return England to the old faith, and Bacon stood 
athwart the ripening of events. Again, his deep methods 
for reform, his Novum Organum had for months before 
his fall been beneath Rome's scrutinizing eye. From the 
Britannica article on Buckingham, p. 418, we quote as 
follows : " In the winter of 1621 and the succeeding year, 
Buckingham was entirely in Gondomar' s hands, and it 
was only with some difficulty that in May 1G22 Laud 
argued him out of a resolution to declare himself a Roman 
Catholic." 

Whatever may have been the pretensions to Bacon by 
either king or Buckingham, they never did aught to save 
or to in any way break his fall ; but by systematic manoeu- 
vring thereafter took his fleece, his York House, his wealth, 
and who, according to Mr. Spedding's presentation, 
instead of being miserly, was the most liberal of men. 

After the flush of his sorrow had passed, he with re- 
newed energy sought to make himself of service to the 
king, and through the king to posterity. Being by the 
Parliamentary sentence excluded from the verge of the 
court and hence from London, he on June 23d retired 
to his residence at Gorhambury, in Hertfordshire, where 
soon was completed his History of Henry the Seventh. 
He now proposed to the king as " active work" the re- 
compiling of laws, the regulation of the jurisdiction of 
courts, the regulation of trade, ^ the disposing of waids, 
and the education of youth generally. For " contempla- 

' The chief harshness in Bacon's writings will be found to be upon 
this subject. Promus, 937. (I lost my honour in talking ill and in 
ill listening.) 

^ This and other of these subjects will be found treated in the Defoe 
literature. See Addison's Vision on Public Credit, vol. ii., p. 237. 



LIFE OF BACON. 303 

tive work" he proposed a continuance of the History of 
England from his now completed History of Henry the 
Seventh, a general treatise de Legibus et Justitia, and a 
treatise on the Holy War against the Ottomans or Turks. 
And so in various ways did he offer his services to the 
king. But the king did not care for his work, and so his 
literary methods were left to be chosen in his own way. 
Daring this year appeared the enlarged Anatomy of Melan- 
choly in two volumes, and which we unhesitatingly pro- 
nounce a product of his pen. It embraces much of the 
note-book, and as such contains scaffolding or building 
materials for other work. His " Holy War" is but a frag- 
ment, having been broken off in the form in which it was 
begun, as we shall claim, for the Bunyan work.' So also 
his History of Henry the Eighth was broken off, and in 
its stead we have the Shakespeare drama by that name, 
and which first appeared in the Great Folio of 1623. In 
the postscript of a letter by Bacon to the king, September 
5th, 1621 (see end of sc. 2, Act iii., Henry VIII.), he says : 

" Cardinal Wolsey said that if he had pleased God as he 
had pleased the king, lie had not been ruined. My con- 
science saith no such thing ; for I know not but in serving 
you, I have served God in one. But it may be, if I had 
pleased God, as I had pleased you, it would have been 
better with me." (Works, vol. iii., p. 136.) 

He in this letter says : " For in that other poor prop 
of my estate, which is the farming of the petty writs, 
I improved your majesty's revenue by four hundred 
pounds the year. And likewise, when I received the seal, 
I left both the attorney's place, which was a gainful 
place, and the clerkship of the Star Chamber, which was 
Queen Elizabeth's favour, and was worth twelve hundred 
pounds by the year, which would have been a good com- 
mejidcun. The hon-ours which your majesty hath done me 
have put me above the means to get my living ; and the 
misery I am fallen into hath put mo below the means to 
subsist as I am. I hope my courses shall be such, for this 
little end of my thread'^ which remaineth, as your majesty 

^ See this trail laid in the Serious Reflections of Crusoe, and where 
is painted forth many of Bacon's life aims, and along and upon which 
line, other works were designed to tie. 

2 Note this use of the word " thread," as we shall later find it 
woven into the play of The Tempest. 



304 LIFE OF BACON^. 

in doing me good may do good to many, both that live 
now, and shall be born hereafter." 

This was in September. In October he prepared a 
petition to Parliament asking relief from his sentence. 
This he entrusted to Buckingham for presentation. All 
things that were expected to succeed had to go through 
this channel. After some little manoeuvring he gave 
Bacon to understand that York House must first be his. 
Bacon now sought an interview, and prepared the paper 
which we have already quoted at p. 283, and which Mr. 
Spedding says must have been between October 20th and 
December 16th. Buckingham did not come, and so he 
wrote to him as follows : 

*' My Lord : I say to myself that your Lordship hath 
forsaken me ; and I think I am one of the last, that find- 
eth it, and in nothing more, than that, twice in London, 
your Lordship vvoukl not vouchsafe to see me, though the 
latter time I begged it of you. If your lordship take any 
insatisfaction about York House, good my lord, think of 
it better ; for I assure your Lordship, that motion to me 
was to me as a second sentence ; for I conceive it sen- 
tenced me to the loss of that which I thought was saved 
from the former sentence, which is your love and favour. 
But sure it would not be that pelting matter, but the 
being out of sight, out of use, anci the ill offices done me, 
perhaps, by such as have your ear. Thus I think, and 
thus I speak for I am far enough from any baseness or de- 
tracting, but shall ever love and honour you, however it 
be. Your forsaken friend and freed servant."^ (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vii,, p. 314.) 

To the Earl of Lenox, who now tried to secure York 
House, he wrote : 

*' My very good Lord : I am sorry to deny your grace 
any thing ; but in this you will pardon me. York House 
is the house wherein my father died, and wherein I first 
breathed : and there will I yield my last breath, if so 
please God, and the king will give me leave ; though I be 
now by fortune (as the old proverb is) like a bear in a 

^ From this moment, we tliink, Bacon's interest in Backingliam 
ceased, and that later he endeavored to bring the " pinches"— to use 
a Baconian word— upon him. Was he thereafter justified in using 
the soft side of speech in endeavoring to save tlie sequestration of 
his estate, is a point involved as to later letters. 



LIFE or BACON". 305 

monk's hood. At least no money, no value, shall make 
me part with it. Besides as I never denied it to my lord 
Marquis, so yet the difficulty I made was so like a denial, 
as I owe unto my great love and respect to his lordship a 
denial to all my other friends ; among whom, in a very 
near place next his lordship, I ever accounted of your 
grace. So not doubting that you will continue me in 
your former love and good affection I rest," etc. (Works, 
vol. iii., p. 140.) 

The king himself, had he felt so disposed, might haA^e 
pardoned him and saved this application to Parliament. 
Bacon, in fact, did first apply to him, but Bucking- 
ham, through Williams, now made Chancellor, procured 
the pardon to be stopped at the seal. Buckingham's 
mother, and in whom Williams was interested, had also 
some hand in this matter, as we shall see. Sackville 
recommends that Bacon's letters be now " made all of 
sweetmeats." ^ Through manoeuvring, however, Bucking- 
ham fiually got Bacon's estate into the hands of Cranfield, 
now made Treasurer, and this done by means of a reference 
from the king, and he was thereafter required to deed to 
him York House. Later, in certain Defoe papers, we 
may learn something further concerning this. 

The neglect, indifference, postponement, and trifling 
as to his now sought pardon may be seen in the corre- 
spondence. It may likewise be seen in Sonnets 57 and 
58, where he as to the king says : 

" Being your slave, what should I do but tend 
Upon llie hours and limes of your desire ? 
I have no precious time at all to spend, 
Nor services to do, till you require.'^ 
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, 
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock^ for you ; 
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,'* 

' See Works, vol. iii., pp. 141 and 144. 

^ His tendered services to the king we have already considered. 
We have likewise seen that Bacon considered contemplation a real 
delight. 

2 In a lettcrto Buckingham in 1619, Bacon says : " For the Star- 
Chamber business, I shall (as you w^rite) keep the clock on going, 
which is hard to do when sometimes the wheels are too many and 
sometimes too few." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 74.) 

* In his Essay on "Judicature," Bacon says : " There be (saith 
the Scriptures) that turn judgment into wormwood; and surely 



30G LIFE OF BACON. 

AVlien you have bid your servant once adieu : 
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought 
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose ; 
But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, 
Save, where you are, how happy you make those. 
So true a fool is love, that in your will, 
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill." 

" That God forbid, that made me first your slave, 
I should in thought control your times of pleasure 
Or at your hand Ih' account of hours to crave, 
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure ! 

! let* me suffer, being at your beck, 
Th' imprison'd absence of your liberty ; 

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, 

Without accusing you of injury. 

Be where you list, your charter is so strong, 

That you 3^ourself may privilege your time 

To what you will ; to you it doth belong 

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. - 

1 am to wait, though waiting so be hell. 
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well." 

And was William Shakespeare watching the clock — the 
financial clock — for his sovereign ? and so his slave that 
he had no precious time to spend nor services to do till 
he required ? And what self-doing crime had his sover- 
eign put upon him ? See also Sonnet 120. 

And thus under the shield of Venus, as we shall see, or in 
the form of a lover, did Bacon apply himself for aid to the 
fountain function— the kingly office. Touching this, we 
in the A. D. B. Mask, p. 9, have : " But I stray too far, 
time calls upon me, now to set upon the Subject itself, 
before I proceed to any other matters. First then let the 
Courtier or whosoever else, which hath determined with 
himself, to bestow and dedicate his endeavours to the ser- 
vice of Princes, often deliberate, and think upon this one 
thing, that the Court in some sort, doth represent and 
resemble, love, or a warfare, and lovers we know, will 

there be also that turn it into vinegar ; for injustice maketh it 
bitter, and delays make it sour." 

* We understand him here to say that the king, having procured 
him to abandon a good defence, that the crime rests there, and hence 
that he and not the Parliament should pardon it. See this point, 
as well as to loss of time, touched upon in his notes for an interview 
with Buckingham at p. 284. Promus, 1152. (/ icas dumb, and 
opened not my month becau.se thou, didst it.) Promus, 1013. (How- 
ever, I postponed my serious business to their play.) 



LIFE OF EACOI?". 307 

diligently remove every rub, obstacle, or impediment, 
whereby they may content and please their beloved : Sol- 
diers also do labour, and endeavour, with all care and dili- 
gence, and make this the mark, whereat they wholly level 
and aim, namely to follow their Captain or leader ; and 
as much as in them lies, to do what he coramandeth : so 
should an honest Courtier, adorned and endued, with wit 
and discretion, bend and incline, all his study and indus- 
trious endeavours, not only with diligence, to entertain 
his King's, and Prince's commission and command ; but 
promptly, speedily, and with all care and fidelity, to dis- 
charge the charge, which is committed unto him : And 
lie which lays this foundation of a Courtier's life, shall 
doubtless be graciously acceptable, in the sight of his 
Sovereign." 

In this work the court is ever likened to the sea. Was 
this the allegoric sea upon which Crusoe was warned not 
to enter? 

For reasons of state or otherwise, it is said that silence 
was imposed upon Bacon and upon his friends after he 
was in his grave. Archbishop Tennison says: "The 
great cause of his sufferings is to some a secret. I leave 
them to find it out by his own words to King James : 
* I wish that as I am the first, so I may be the last of sacri- 
fices in your times : and when, from private appetite, it is 
resolved that a creature shall be sacrificed, it is easy to 
pick up sticks enough from any thicket whither it hath 
strayed to make a fire to offer it with.' '' (Works, vol. i., 
p. 99.) 

His chaplain. Dr. Rawley, says : " Some papers touching 
matters of estate, tread too near to the heels of truth and 
to the times of the persons concerned." We think 
we shall later learn something touching those papers. 

When the sonnets were put forth, none of which ap- 
peared in the Great First Folio, they were so transposed 
and mixed, and evidently by design, as to cloak their true 
relations. Here we anticipate a ([uestion. Did the first 
edition contain them all ? as those applying to King 
James could not have been produced earlier than 1621, 
and the first edition of them is said to have been issued in 
1609. If, then, the first edition contained them all — 
which it probably did not — was the method as to mixing 
them, in order to destroy relations, extended likewise to 



308 LIFE OF BACON. 

the date, by antedating the edition, so as but still more 
effectually to cloak their relations? The sonnets, how- 
ever, as we now have them, did not probably appear until 
the second edition, put forth in 1G40. 

The sonnets, then, point chiefly : 1. To new and unfold- 
ing methods in philosophy ; 2. To the fact that they were 
the product of some covert pen ; 3. To a desire through 
Elizabeth for a Protestant heir to the throne of England ; 
and 4. To the downing of their author — the then chief 
pillar of Protestantism in Europe. 

The galsomeness of Buckingham sent York House to 
the hands of the now Treasurer, Oranfield ; and his liberty 
to come within the verge of the court he was able to secure 
only through the Spanish minister, and so we need not 
therefore wonder that in the play of The Tempest 
James is represented in a couplet as the king of both 
countries. After the dissolution of James' last Parlia- 
ment Mr. Spedding says : '' Gondomar thought that there 
was an end of Parliaments in England, that the king 
would be inevitably thrown into the arms of Spain, and 
that though the people would be much enraged, they 
would not be able to help themselves. Digby regarded it 
as settling the question as to the expediency of the match. 
The Palatinate could not be rescued except by the co- 
operation of Spain ; and in order to secure that co-opera- 
tion the marriage must be concluded. The Spaniards, 
ready to do whatever was necessary to keep James on their 
side and detach him from the Protestant cause in the 
European quarrel, professed the strongest wish for the 
alliance, promised everything that was likely to encourage 
him to proceed with it, and made Digby believe that they 
intended performance. It was only by the absolute au- 
thority of the two kings, he said, that the business could 
be brought to any good conclusion ; the Spanish council of 
State had decided, after a full discussion of the question 
of the Palatinate, that complete satisfaction should be 
given to the King of England : and he ' made no doubt 
but that the Prince should entirely be restored both to his 
territories and his electorate : and the King of Spain, 
merely to gratify his Majesty, would make it his work.' " 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 369.) 

Mr. Spedding also says : " When Gondomar proposed 
to Bacon (a few weeks after the Lords had passed judg- 



LIFE OF BACON. 309 

ment upon him at the demand of the Cotnmons), to en- 
gage the King of Spain to become an intercessor for him 
with the King of England, the i^roposal was so unfit and 
unreasonable that he could only thank him and put it by. 
But when upon their confidence in Gondomar's advice and 
invitation the Prince and Buckingham had taken so bold 
and hazardous a step, it could not be doubted that he had 
influence with them, and Bacon (presuming that he would 
be disposed to use it in his favour as he had been before) 
wrote to remind him of his condition and explain how 
matters now stood." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 410.) 

But between Gondomar and Buckingham a breach 
arose, as will appear by Bacon's letter to Matthew into 
Spain, while Buckingham and the Prince were there in 
the matter of the marriage alliance. The letter is as 
follows : 

"Good Mr. Matthew: I have received your letter, 
sent by my Lord of Andover ; and, as I acknowledged your 
care, so I cannot fit it with any thing, that I can think 
on for myself ; for, since Gondomar, who was my volun- 
tary friend, is in no credit, neither with the Prince, nor 
with the Duke, I do not see what may be done for me 
there ; except that which Gondomar hath lost you have 
found ; and then I am sure my case is amended : so as, 
with a great deal of confidence, T commend myself to you, 
hoping, that you will do what in you lieth, to prepare 
the Prince and Duke to think of me, upon their return. 
And if you have any relation to the Infanta, I doubt not 
but it shall be also to my use. God keep you," etc. 
(Works, vol. iii., p. 151.) 

Gondomar befriended 13acon when all other avenues had 
been closed to him, and he is represented as Gonzalo in 
the play of The Tempest,^ and where this breach with 
Buckingham clearly appears. 

JJpon his fall, Bacon, as already remarked, applied him- 
self industriously to the Prince, in whom from that mo- 
ment he began to centre his hopes for the future of his 
philosoph}^, and who in 1622 had grown indifferent to 
the Spanish alliance, and was pursuing courses that were 
pleasing to Bacon. From the Britannica article on 
Charles the First we quote : " By the death of his brother 

' See Bacon's letter to Matthew concerning Gondomar, February 
28th, 1621. (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 335.) ^ 



310 LIFE OF BACOiq-. 

Henry, he became Prince of Wales in 1612, but the first 
jiublic matter of importance in which he was concerned 
was the Spanish marriage. At first he was quite indiffer- 
ent to the affair, and in 1G22 he was full of a dream that 
he would lead an army into the Palatinate, and set his 
dear sister upon her throne. But, by the beginning of 
the next year, Buckingham had filled him with the roman- 
tic notion of setting off, in defiance of all policy, on a 
private visit to Spain." 

At this time Bacon was urging the union of all Chris- 
tian princes to a war against the Ottomans, the Turks. 
In 1622 was written his fragment on the " Holy War," 
and where the six disputants or characters may not inaptly 
be compared to the six subtle nymphs or spirits in the 
play of The Tempest.^ Note likewise the six char- 
acters in his brilliant court mask in 1594, already alluded 
to ; and by which he was trying to educate the queen, 
their subjects being philosophy, buildings and founda- 
tions, state and treasure, virtue and a gracious govern- 
ment, pastimes and sports ; and note the treatment of 
these subjects in the Defoe literature. Observe in his 
article on the " Holy War" the consummate skill employed 
in handling a subject dialogue-wise, and yet this is the 
only piece of like composition with which Lord Bacon's 
name is associated. So is the New Atlantis, his only nar- 
rational piece. Neither of these was published until 
after his death. 

Buckingham and the Prince having failed to bring 
about the marriage alliance with Spain returned in anger. 
Shifting now from their previous courses, they at once 
resolved upon a war with Spain. In this they struck the 
popular wave, and for the moment Buckingham was the 
most popular man in England. The king, though reluc- 

^ Of these Ariel, or the cogitative faculty, stands chief, the senses 
yielding to it their reports. And so, falling within the gigantic 
drama of the Defoe period, may be found these six characters, five 
of whom remit to Bickeustaff (a mere nom de plume) their messages. 
Please see Addison, vol. ii., pp. 228-37, and pp. 1-18. And in vol. 
iv., p. 67, we have : "These rigid critics are so afraid of allowing 
me anything which does not belong to me, that they will not be pos- 
itive whether the lion, the wild boar, and the flower-pots in the play- 
house, did not actually write those letters which come to me in their 
name." He, Addison, is said to have been a very shy man, and 
one hard to draw into discourse. 



LIFE OF BACON. 311 

tantly, was compelled to fall in with the changes which 
these circumstances brought, and which placed Buck- 
ingham beyond his control, and whom he ever after 
feared, as Buckingham held the firm confidence of the 
Prince, the prospective heir to the throne, and as the 
history of the times will fully show. As to Bucking- 
ham's power over, and his violent courses toward, the 
king, even before he and the Prince went into Spain, 
and which was against the king's wishes, see Hume, vol. 
iv., pp. 66-69. 

Concerning a plot against the life of the king and other 
points in the play of The Tempest, we from Weldon's 
Court and Character of King James quote matter between 
p]). 44 and 47, as follows : 

" The Spanish Match, liaving been long in Treaty, and 
it being suspected now, that the Sjmniard did juggle wilh 
this State in this, as they formerly did in a Match with 
that brave Prince Henry, and in truth, in all other things 
wherein any negotiation had been, only feeding the King 
with fair hopes, and fair words, yet foul deeds. Whether 
the King suspected any such matter, or any whimsey 
came in the brain of this great Favorite and Prince, to 
imitate the old story of the Knights Errand, but agreed 
it was (it should seem) between the Favorite and the 
Prince only (no one other so much as dreaming of any 
such adventure) except Cottington, who also accompanied 
them, that the Prince must go himself into Spain : away 
they went under the borrowed names of Jach and Tovi 
Smith to the amazement of all wise men, only accompanied 
with Cottington, and some one or two more at most, taking 
their way by France; had the Ports laid so, that none 
should follow them, or give any notice to the French 
Court, till they might get the start, etc., yet their wisdoms 
made them adventure to stay in the French Court, 
and look on that Lady whom he after married ; and 
there did this Mars imitate one of Prince Arthur's 
Knights, in seeking Adventures through foreign Princes' 
territories ; 1st beheld this French beauty Mars vidit 
visamq ; cupit potiturq ; cupita : as in our discourse will 
afterwards appear ; from thence away to Spain ; but as 
the Journey was only plotted by young heads, so it was so 
childishly carried, that they escaped the French King's 
Curriers very narrowly, but escape they did, and arrived 



312 LIFE OF BACON. 

safely in Spain their wished Port, before eifclier welcome, 
or expected, by our Embassadors, or that State. 

" Yet now must the best face be put on, at all hands, 
that pat their Grandees to new shifts, and our Embassador 
the Earl of Bristol to try his wit, for at that time was Sir 
Walter Aston also Embassador at Spai7i, in all occurrences 
Aston complied with the Prince and l)uke, Bristol ran 
counter ; and the Duke and Bristol hated each other 
mortally. 

'' Bristol had the advantage of them there, as having 
the much better head-piece, and being more conversant 
and dear with that state, wholly complying with them, 
and surely had done them very acceptable services (and in 
this very Treaty was one of the pack) Buckingham had 
the advantage of him in England (although the King did 
now hate BuckingJiam, yet was so awed that he durst not 
discover it.) Then Buchingham had all interest in his 
successor by this journey, so that he laid a present and 
future foundation of his succeeding greatness. 

'* For all his power and 'greatness, Bristol did not for- 
bear to put all scorns, affronts, and tricks on him, and 
Buckingham lay so open, as gave the other advantage 
enough by his lascivious carriage and miscarriage. 

*' Amongst all his tricks, he plays one so cunningly, that 
it cost him all the hair on his head, and put him to the 
diet ; for it should seem he made court to Concle Olivons 
L. a very handsome Lady ; But it was so plotted betwixt 
tlie Lady, her Husband, and Bristol, that instead of 
that beauty, he had a notorious Stew sent him, and surely 
his carriage there was so lascivious, that had ever the 
match been really intended for our Prince, yet such a 
Companion, or Guardian, was enough to have made them 
believe he had been that way addicted, and so have frus- 
trated the marriage, that being a grave and sober Nation, 
Buckingham of a light and loose behavior ; and had the 
Prince himself been of an extraordinary well staid temper, 
the other had been a very ill Guardian unto him. 

" But now many Lords flockt over, and many Servants, 
that he might appear the Prince of England, and like him- 
self, though he came thither like a private person, many 
Treaties were, sometimes hope, sometimes despair, some- 
times great assurance, then all dasht again, and however, 
his entertainment was as great as possible that State could 



LIFE OF BACON. 313 

afford ; yet was his addresses to, and with the Lady snch, 
as rendered him mean, and a private person, rather than 
a Prince of that State, that formerly had made Spain feel 
the weight of their anger, and power ; and was iike a Ser- 
vant, not a Suitor, for he never was admitted, but to stand 
barehead in her presence, nor to talk with her, but in a 
full audience with much company. 

*' At last, after many heats and cools, many hopes and 
despairs, the Prince wrote a letter to his Father of a des- 
perate despair, not only of not enjoying his Lady, but of 
never more returning, with this passage. You must now 
Sir look upon my Sister and her children, forgetting ever 
you had such a Son, and never think more of me. 

" Now the folly of this voyage, plotted only by green 
heads, began to appear, many showing much sorrow, 
many smiling at their follies (and in truth glad in their 
Hearts) and however the King was a cunning dissembler, 
and showed much outward sorrovv, as he did for Prince 
Henries death, yet something was discerned, which made 
his Court believe little grief came near his heart, for that 
hatred he bear to Buchingliam long (as being satiated 
with him) and his adoring the rising sun, not looking 
after the sun setting, made the world believe he would think 
it no ill bargain to loose his son, so Buckingham might be 
lost also, for had he not been weary of Buckingham he 
would never have adventured him in such a journey, all 
his Courtiers knew that very well. 

" And for a further illustration of his weariness of 
Buckingham, it appeared in the Parliament before, when 
the King gave so much way to his mine, that Bucking- 
ham challenged him that he did seek his mine, and being 
generally held a lost man, the King to make it appear it 
was not so, and that the King durst not avow his own 
act, brought him off from that Parliament, but Bucking- 
ham hated the King ever afterwards." 

It is here further stated that after the marriage of 
Buckingham the king's edge was taken off from all favor- 
ites, but that he durst not choose another, and that the 
king stood in fear of the now intimacy between the Piince 
and Buckingham, toward whom great disgust was enter- 
tained by one Juniossa, a Spanish ambassador extraor- 
dinary, and concerning which v/e, p. 48, have : 

'' This Juniossa being a brave daring Gentleman, used 



314 LIFE OF BACON^. 

some speeches in the derogation of the Prince and Buch- 
ingliam, as if they were dangerous to the old King ; nay, 
Juniossa sent one Padro 3Ieceslria, a SpanisJi Jesuite, and 
a great Statesman, to King James, to let him know, that 
he, nnder confession, had found the King was by Buck- 
ingham, or by his procurement, to be killed, but whether 
by Poyson, Pistol, Dagger, etc., that he could not tell. 

*' The King, after the hearing this, was extream melan- 
choly, and in that passion was found by Buchingliam at 
his return to him. The King, as soon as ever he espied 
him, said, Ah Stenny, Stenny, for so he ever called him in 
familiarity, wilt thou kill me? at which Buckingham 
started, and said, who Sir hath so abused you ? at which 
the King sate silent ; out went Buckingham,, fretting and 
fuming, asked, who had been with the King in his ab- 
sence.^" 

We would gladly quote further did space permit. This 
work is little more than a pamphlet consisting of but 
sixty-one pages, and by the initials A. AV. was put forth 
in 1650, and it has generally been attributed to Anthony 
Weldon. As we regard the A. D. B. Musk as having been 
written by Bacon before, so we regard this pamphlet as 
written by him subsequent to his fall, though ingenious 
interpolations may have been made between pp. 39 and 
44. 

In the breaking off of the S[)anish marriage alliance, 
Bacon, as well as the populace, was delighted, as he had 
now new hopes from the Prince. The play of The Tem- 
pest must have been completed at about this time, as the 
Great First Folio, of which it forms the first j^iece, is said 
to have appeared during this year, 1623. 

Upon the return of the Prince to England Bacon at 
once addressed to him the following letter, accompanied 
with a copy of the De Augmentis, which then made its 
first appearance. 

" It MAY PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENT HiGHNESS : I SCud 

your highness in all humbleness, my book of Advance- 
ment of Learning, translated into Latin, but so enlarged, 
as it may go for a new work. It is a book, I think, will 
live, and be a citizen of the world, as English books are 
not.^ For Henry the Eighth, to deal truly with your 

^ In Hamlet it was the habe. In the Advancement of Learning it 
WHS the child. And now, as the De Augmentis, it was a citizen of 



LIFE OF BACON. 315 

Liglmess, T did so despair of my health this summer, as I 
was glad to chose some such work, as 1 might compass 
within days ; so far was I from entering into a work of 
length. Your highness' return hath been my restorative. 
When I shall wait upon your highness, I shall give you a 
further account. So I most humbly kiss your highness 
hands, resting 

" Your highness* most devoted servant." 

*' I would (as I wrote to the Duke in Spain) I could do 
your highness' journey any honour with my pen. It 
"began like a fable of the poets ; but it deserveth all in a 
piece a worthy narration." ^ (Works, vol. iii., p. 152.) 

Bacon also prepared minutes for a letter to Buckingham 
in these words : 

" That I am exceeding glad his grace is come home with 
so fair a reputation of a sound Protestant, and so constant 
for the king's honour and errand. 

'' Ilis grace is now to consider that his reputation will 
vanish like a dream except now, upon his return, he do 
some remarkable act to fix it, and bind it in. 

" They have a good wise proverb in the country whence 
he Cometh, taken I think from a gentleman's sampler,^ 
Qui en no da nudo, iiierdo punto, ' he that tieth not a 
knot* upon his thread, loseth his stitch.' 

the world. It had pcassed through different swaddlings, and was 
now in its citizen's clothes. 

^ Note in the play of The Tempest the use of this expression 
" your highness." 

2 Note this allusion to fable in the foregoing quotation from 
Weldon, p. 311. 

2 Note the use of the words "gentlewoman" and "wench" 
through all tliis literature, and as to the word " sampler," here used, 
we cpiote from Gulliver's Travels, p. 193, as follows : 

" She furl'd her sampler, and haul'd in her thread, 
And stuck her needle into Grildrig's bed. 
Then spread her hands, and with a bounce let fall 
Her baby, like the giant in Guildhall." 

^ Promus, 614. He who does not tie the knot loses the end (of his 
string). This use of the words " knot" and " thread " will be found 
in nearly every phase of this literature, and quite often in the plays. 
In the introduction to Defoe's Duncan Campbell we have : 

" This knot I knit, 

To know the thing I know not yet, 

That I may see 

The man that shall ray husband be ; 



316 LIFE OF BACOl^. 

" Any particular, I that live in darkness, cannot pro- 
pound. Let his grace, who seeth clear, make his choice ; 
but let some such thing be done, and then this reputation 
will stick by him ; and his grace may afterwards be at the 
better liberty to take and leave off the future occasions 
that shall present." (Works, vol. iii., p. 152.) 

We would have the reader here call into relation the 
word '' thread," as used in the foregoing notes, as used at 
p. 281, as used in Bacon's Letter, p. 303, and as used in 
the play of The Tempest, Act iv., sc. 1, p. 78, where 
Bacon, as Prospero, again tenders to the Prince his Mi- 
randa, his philosophy, saying, " for I have given you here 
a thread of mine own life, or that for which I live ; whom 
once again I tender to thy hand." ^ 

The remaining thread of Bacon's years will be found 
chiefly in his literary work. In his dedicatory letter to 
Bishop Andrews, in 1622, of the fragment entitled the 
" Holy War," he mentions the overthrow of Demosthenes, 
Cicero, and Seneca, and the after manner of expending 
their time. As to Seneca he says : 

" Seneca indeed, who was condemned for many corrup- 
tions and crimes, and banish^ into a solitary island, kept 
a mean ; and though his pen did not freeze yet he ab- 
stained from intruding into matters of business ; but spent 
his time in writing books of excellent argument and use 
for all ages ;'' though he might have made better choice 
sometimes, of his dedications. 

" These examples confirmed me much in a resolution, 
whereunto I was otherwise inclined, to spend my time 
wholly in writing ; and to put forth that poor talent, or 
half talent, or what it is,* that God hath given me, not, 

How he goes, nnd what he wears, 
And what he does all days and years." 
^ See this identical expression, "thread of my life," in Bacon's 
letter to Queen Elizabeth in 1599. (Bacon's Letters, vol. ii., p. 165.) 
^ And we shall hxter see what Bacon did for the ages to come. 
^ It may thus be seen that Bacon was conscious of an unusual 
talent. Upon this point see his prayer already quoted at p. 278. Read 
likewise his letter, our Head light, in connection with the following 
from Henry IV., part 1, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 230 : 
" Cousin, of many men 
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave 
To tell you once again, — that at my birth 
The front of heaven was full of liery shapes ; 



LIFE or BAcoisr. 317 

as heretofore, to particular exchanges, but to banks or 
mounts of perpetuity, which will not break. Therefore, 
having not long since set forth a part of my Instauration ; 
which is the work that, in mine own judgment, ' si nun- 
quam fallit imago,' T do most esteem : I think to proceed 
in some new parts thereof ; and although I have received 
from many parts beyond the seas, testimonies touching 
that work, such as beyond which I could not expect at 
the first in so abstruse an argument ; yet, nevertheless, 
I have jnst cause to doubt, that it flies too high over 
men's heads : I have a purpose, therefore, though 1 break 
the order of time,^ to draw it down to the sense, by some 
patterns of a natural story and inquisition/' 

He here also says : " As for my Essays, and some par- 
ticulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreations 
of my other studies, and in that sort purpose to continue 
them : though I am not ignorant that those kind of writ- 
ings would, with less pains and embracement, perhaps, 
yield more lustre and reputation to my name than those 
other which I have in hand." But I account the use that 
a man should seek of the publication of his own writings 
before his death, to be bnt an untimely anticipation of 
tliat which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along 
with him." (Works, vol. ii., pp. 435-36.) 

For these essays let Defoe's " Review" and the works 
of Addison be examined. They were doubtless begun as 
early as 1608. In the foregoing may be seen Bacon's 
expressed intention of writing " patterns of natural story." 

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds 

"Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. 

These signs have mark'd me extraordinarj^ ; 

And all the courses of my life do show 

I am not in the roll of common men. 

Where is he living, — clipp'd in with the sea 

Tiiat chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, — 

Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me ? 

And bring him out, that is but woman's son, 

Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, 

And hold me pace in deep experiments.' 

' What is here meant by breaking the order of time ? 

- Bacon's Essay entitled '" Of Studies" opens thus : ' Studies serve 
for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for de- 
light, is in privatent'ss and retiring ; for ornament, is in discourse ; 
and for abilitj, is in the judgment and disposition of business." 



318 LIFE OF BACON". 

Observe also, in connection with Crusoe, his mention of Sen- 
eca's experience in a solitary island. And so we bring 
this sketch to conclusion by calling attention to the sig- 
nificant fact that to Lord Bacon's last will, executed 
December 19, 1625, one Will Atkins was a witness, and so 
by that name, identical in form, have we the prominent 
character late in the story of Crusoe. 



THE TEMPEST. 



We here set forth some further thoughts touching that 
most subtle piece of work known as the play of TheTem- 
pest. Its leading characters we understand to be, Bacon 
as Prospero ; Miranda, his child of philosophy, his Prot- 
estant heir, that was to be wedded to a prince of power ; 
and she desiring her husband, to play for a score of king- 
doms ; while as to Caliban, the monster, the warning, this 
character we reserve for more specific statement. 

The opening of the voyage is the entry of James the 
First upon his third Parliament, in 1621. The tempest, 
the storm for reform, the vessel, the ship of state. 

James, as Alonzo, is at this time so far absorbed in 
Naples — in other words, in Spain and the Spanish mar- 
riage alliance, as to be represented a dual character, stand- 
ing as the king of both countries ; while the real King of 
Spain, as Sebastian, is the brother — in other words, our 
dear brother, the King of Spain. 

The king's great screen, Buckingham, as Antonio, is 
the false brother to Bacon, or Prospero, and by whom his 
Milan, his dukedom, his empire of learning, is bowed " to 
most ignoble stooping." Buckingham being in this sense 
brother to Bacon, to Miranda he is the false uncle. 

The Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, as Gonzalo, is 
represented as master of the design. He to Bacon, or 
Prospero, became the noble Neapolitan who gave rich 
garments and furnished him with books from his own 
library, which he prized above his dukedom. 

The king's son, Prince Charles, as Ferdinand, is the 
young Prince of power, to whom Bacon, or Prospero, 
sought to wed his Miranda, while the king sought to wed 
him to the Infanta of Spain. 

The vessel is represented as trying to make two courses. 
The mentioned parties represent the one, and the rabble 
the other of these courses, the latter having control of the 



320 THE TEMPEST. 

vessel. After tlie storm's collapse, and according to de- 
sign, all were left in confusion, upon which confuaion 
Prospero souglit to exercise his art. He says he saved the 
vessel, and had done all for Miranda's sake, and that it 
was she that had given '' An undergoing stomach to bear 
up against what should ensue." 

Bacon himself moved the Parliament to its purgings, 
and the object of the storm was to bring the king, the 
Prince, and Buckingham to their senses ; and the king 
and his party are represented as having been cast upon 
the same sad island to which their dealings had con- 
signed him. Oat of this confusion the Prince, and as de- 
signed, becomes wedded to his Protestant heir, to his 
philosoph_y, and his dukedom restored. This, though not 
accomplished. Bacon doubtless thought he had accom- 
plished at the writing of this play, and which must have 
been completed soon after the breach of the Spanish alli- 
ance, to have permitted its entry in the Great Folio of 
1623. But Charles soon fell away from Bacon's influ- 
ence, as the facts, as well as the play, will show. As it 
was issued during the life of James, it was drowned 
deep in subtlety, otherwise its interpretation might have 
cost Bacon his head. It is, we think, a play with the 
underplot here indicated. See note as to underplot, p. 88. 

Through these doings Bacon by the Parliamentary sen- 
tence was himself excluded from London, from his library, 
from his estate, and he and Miranda were for a time at 
sea and without aid. Some little poetic license in this 
must be allowed, as also in putting language into Miranda's 
mouth, and which must be allowed in any interpretation 
of this subtle piece of work. Concerning Miranda, see 
pp. 87, 224, 225. 

AVe understand the six airy spirits of the play to stand 
for the five human senses, over which Ariel, or the cogita- 
tive faculty of the mind, as the sixth spirit, holds sway. 
That Ariel is the highest order among his fellows may be 
seen. Act iv., sc. 1, p. 80, where we have : 

" Ari. What would my potent master? here I am. 
Pro. Thou and thy meaner fellows' your last service 

'This word "fellows," used thrnughont the plays, throughout 
The Pilgrim's Progress, we shall later call into relation with the 
New Atlantis. 



THE TEMPEST. 321 

Did worthily perform ; and I must use you 
In such another triclv : Go, bring tlie rabble, 
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place : 
Incite them to quick motion ; for I must 
Bestow upon the ej^es of this young couple 
Some vanity of mine art ; it is my promise, 
And they expect it from me." 

Bacon says: ''Hence one of the moderns has ingen- 
iously reduced all the power of the soul to motion, noting 
the precipitancy of some of the ancients, who, fixing their 
thoughts prematurely on memory, imagination, and reason, 
have neglected the cogitative faculty, which, however, 
plays the chief role in the work of conception. For he 
that remembers, cogitates, as likewise he who fancies or 
reasons ; so that the soul of man in all her moods dances 
to the musical airs of the cogitations, which is that re- 
bounding of the Nymphs." (De Augmentis, Book 2, ch. 
13, p. 105, Bohn's ed.) See quotation, p. 62. 

By these nymphs did Bacon bring to viow the subtle 
ends sought in this work, and its magic is the magic of 
genius. 

While Charles, as Ferdinand, seeks to place his sister 
Elizabeth, Claribel in the play, upon the throne of Bohe- 
mia, he is m accord with Bacon's wishes. See p. 310. 
But Buckingham thwarts Bacon in this, and drew the 
Prince anew to the Infanta and to Spain. 

Prospero then interposes between him and his daughter 
and calls him a 'Hraitor," an ''impostor." But after 
the breach of the Spanish alliance he renews the spell. 
As to what Miranda is to yield when wedded to power, see 
the whole of sc. 1, Act iv. Here we find pictured forth 
what Bacon claimed would be the results of his philosophy. 
It was to bring peace and plenty. It was to increase men's 
bread and wine. We here also find an allusion to certain 
groves : 

" Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, 
Being lassdorn. " 

As to Charles being laas-lorn upon the breach of the Span- 
ish alliance, see our quotation from Weldon, p. 313. 

This play, as does the New Atlantis, opens abruptly in 
the midst of a voyage, and in case of the New Atlantis the 
vessel is headed by way of the South Sea to China and 
11 



322 THE TEMPEST. 

Japan, ^ and tliereby hangs a tale yet untold, in connection 
with Bacon's troubles. As we enter upon its further con- 
sideration, let Macaulay's words as to Bacon be taken with 
us as we go, wherein he says : " In wit, if by wit be meant 
the power of perceiving analogies between things which 
appear to have nothing in common, he never had an 
equal." And see Promus note lOOG, p. 158. 

The play opens in some cautionary words by those in 
command of the vessel, and the king and his party imme- 
diately appear upon its deck, and the king, as Alonzo, in 
his first speech to the crew, says : 

'' Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master ? Play 
tlie men," ^ 

By the words " Play the men," Hudson in a note says : 
** That is, act with spirit, behave like men." Had these 
words been intended as a question they would have been 
followed with a mark of interrogation. 

The popular discontent in Parliament at this period 
toward the king may be seen in the boatswain's' speech 
soon after, in the words " What care these roarers for 
the name of king?" After some converse with the rabble 
by the king's party the boatswain, as to the vessel, says : 

" Boats. Lay her ahold, a-hold : set her two courses ; off to sea 
again ; lay Her off." 

The two courses for the vessel, as already indicated, 
were : 1. That trying to be made by the king's party 

* Note the references to "China" and "Japan" in the New 
Atlantis and in the various phases of this literature, and particu- 
larly in the Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe. 

' In many places in The Pilgrim's Progress do we find this ex- 
pression, " play the man." On p. 330 it is said : " Verily, Christian 
did here play the man, and showed himself as stout as Hercules 
could, had he been here, even he himself." And see pp. 192, 353, 
380 ; and on p. 331 we have : 

" The man so bravely play'd the man, 
He made the fiend to fly ; 
Of which a monument I stand, 
The same to testify." 

^ This word " boatswain" may be found in nearly every branch 
of this literature. In Robinson Crusoe, p. 8, we have : " However, 
the storm was so violent, that I saw what is not often seen, the 
master, the boatswain, and some others, more sensible than the rest, 
at their prayers, and expecting every moment the ship would go to 
the bottom." 



THE TEMPEST. 323 

toward Catholic influences and the Spanish alliance ; and, 
2. That pursued by the rabble, who, recklessly seeking re- 
form, had control of the vessel or ship of stafce. 

Concerning the nautical knowledge displayed in this 
play and in the plays generally, as well as that displayed 
in portions of the Defoe literature — much marvelled at in 
Defoe — we refer the reader to Bacon's writings in general, 
which are nautical in structure, and in particular to his 
** History of the Winds," and where will be found mi- 
nutely described the masts, sails, and the motion of wind 
in the sails of vessels.' (Works, vol. iii. pp. 455-58.) As 
to geography it is needless to say that Bacon's knowledge 
was simply encyclopaedic, and that the world's pulse was 
ever beneath his forefinger.^ Under the figure of an in- 
tellectual globe, he in the Advancement of Learning ex- 
amined the state of the world's then knowledge, marking 
the desert portions, and those portions that were but par- 
tially discovered or explored.^ And so again are we re- 
minded of our Head-light : " For I have taken all knowl- 
edge to be my providence." 

In the first or wrecking scene Gondomar, as Gonzalo, 
says : 

" Qon. The king and prince at prayers ! let us assist them. 
For our cause is as theirs." 

Scene 1 of Act ii. opens by Gronzalo's congratulating the 
King and his party upon their escape from the storm, 
after which Prospero's condition is covertly alluded to 
thus : 

" Seh. He receives comfort like cold porridge. 
Ant. The visitor will not give him o'er so. 

8eb. Look ; he's winding up the watch of his wit : by and by 
it will strike." 

We understand the visitor here alluded to, to be the 
mentioned Spanish ambassador, and who on the next page 
speaks of " dolour" ^ coming to one who entertains every 

^ Promus, 335. (With favorino^ breezes Neptune filled their sails.) 

"^ See his Notes on the States of Europe, made even in his youth. 

2 In his essay entitled "Of Great Place" he makes use of this 
figure, saying : ."In the discharge of thy place set before thee the 
best examples ; for imitation is a globe of precepts." 

■* The word "dolour" is a Baconian word. In his essay en- 
titled " Of Death" he says : " He that dies in earnest pursuit, is 
like one that is wouuded in hot blood : who for the time scarce 



324 THE TEMPEST. " 

grief that is offered, and he is shown to have assisted 
Bacon. ^ Following this speech Buckingham, as Antonio, 
says : 

'* Ant. Fie what a spendthrift is he of his tongue ! 
Alon. I pr'ythee spare. 
Gon. Well, I have done : But yet— 
Seb. He will be talking. 

Ant. Which of them, he, or Adrian, for a good wager, first 
begins to crow?" 

Adrian, the Roman emperor, whose reign began early 
in the second century, is said to have been remarkable for 
every manly and scientific accomplishment, and to whom 
Bacon most "likened himself. Adrian rebuilt Carthage 
and Jerusalem, and on the site of Solomon's temple built 
the temple of Jupiter.^ There were also six popes by this 
name, Adrian the Fourth having been born near St. 
Alban's, in Hertfordshire, England, and he is the only 
Englishman who has occupied the Papal chair, and whose 
name was not Shakespeare, but Nicholas Breakspear. 

On the next page, p. 45, Prospero's pockets, and his 
ignorance as to the true cause of his troubles, are alluded 
to, thus : 

*' Ard. He misses not much. 

Seb. No ; he doth but mistake the truth totally. 

Gon. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond 
credit, — 

Seb. As many vouch 'd rarities are. 

Gon. — that our garments, being, as they were, drenched in 
the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their fceshness, and gloss ; being 
rather new dyed than stain 'd with salt water. ^ 

feels the hurt ; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat 
that is good doth avert the dolours of death." 

' See Bacon's letters to Gondomar. (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., 
pp. 318, 411. 421-23.) 

* Bacon says : " Adrian was the greatest inquirer that ever lived, 
and an insatiable explorer into everything curious and profound. " 
(De Augmentis, Book 1, Bohn ed., p. 60.) 

^ Promus, 904. Salt to water, whence it came. (Salis onus irnde 
venerat, illuc abiii. — Eras. Ad., 257. The freight of water has gone 
whence it came— said of the loss of iH-gotten gains, etc.) Bacon says : 
" Indeed I knew two great and wise counsellors on whom the weight 
of business principally rested, with whom it was a constant care and 
especial art, whenever they conferred with their princes on matters of 
state, not to end their discourse with matters relating to the business 
itself, but always by way of divertissement to draw it away by some 
jest or some agreeable news, and so end by washing off (as the prov- 



THE TEMPEST. 325 

A7it. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he 
lies? 

Seb. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report." 

Again, at the moment when the prince is about to sol- 
emnize his relations witli Miranda, same scene and act, 
p. 87, Prospero is reminded by x\riel of the forces anew 
at work against him, and which he strives now to neu- 
tralize by yielding up more of his estate. He says : 

" Pro. This was well done, my bird. 

Thy shape invisible retain thou still : 
The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither, 
For state to catch these thieves. 

An. I go, I go. [Exit. 

Pro. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature 
Nature can never stick ; on whom my pains, 
Humanly taken, all, all lost, quite lost ; 
And as with age his body uglier grows. 
So his mind cankers : I will plague them all." 

Note the balance of this scene. In the mentioned paper 
by Bacon, for a sought interview with Buckingham, p. 
283, he says : " I do not think any except a Turk or Tar- 
tar would wish to have a further chop out of me." But 
we shall have occasion later to return to this feature of the 

The wrecked enterprise is in sc. 1, Act ii., p. 46, charged 
upon the King himself by his having permitted his daughter 
Elizabeth, Claribel in the phiy, to marry as she did, she 
having married the Protestant Elector Palatine of Bohe- 
mia, the right to whose throne was claimed by Spain or 
the Catholics. 

Spain at this time held a higher position than it had 
since the defeat of the Armada in 1588. With renewed 
consciousness of power the old policy of advancing the Ro- 
man faith rekindled. The claim to the throne of Bo- 
hemia by the English people, if not by their King, was 
now likely to thwart the marriage alliance, and thus result 
in the loss, to the Catholic cause, of the King's son. Prince 
Charles, who after the Parliamentary tempest became cool 
toward the alliance, and warm to his sister's interests in 
the throne of Bohemia. Gonzalo says : 

erb has it) their salt water discourses with fresh." (Phil. Works, 
vol. v., p. 41.) Promus, 693. When it was too salt to wash with 
fresh water (when speech groweth in bitterness to find talk more 
grateful). 



326 THE TEMPEST. 

" Oon. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as tlie first day I wore it ? 
I mean in a sort. 

Ant. That sort was well fish'd for. 

Oon. "When I wore it at your daughter's marriage. ^ 

Alon. You cram those words into mine ears, against 
The stomach^ of my sense. 'Would I had never 
Married my daughter there ! for, coming thence, 
My son is lost ; and, in my rate, she too, 
Who is so far from Italy remov'd, 
I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir 
Of Naples and of Milan ! what strange fish 
Hath made his meal on thee ? 

Fran. Sir, he may live : 

I saw him beat the surges under him. 
And ride upon their backs :, he trod the water, 
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted 
The surge most swoln that met him : his bold head 
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd 
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke 
To the shore, that o'er his wave- worn basis bow'd, 
As stooping to relieve him : I not doubt, 
He came alive to land. 

Alon. No, no ; he's gone. 

8eb. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss ; 
That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, 
But rather lose her to an African ; 
Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye, 
Who hath cause to wet the grief on't. 

Alon. Pr'ythee, pence. 

Seh. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise 
By all of us ; and the fair soul herself 
Weigh'd between loathness and obedience, at 
Which end o' the beam she'd bow. We have lost your son, 

^ We have an impression that this play is but a kind of rewrit- 
ing of the mask performed in honor of the marriage of the king's 
daughter, Elizabeth, to the Prince Palatine in 1613. 

"^ The emphasis placed by Bacon upon the stomach as " master of 
the house," we have noted in earlier pages. He also says : "My 
Lord, I thank God my wit serveth me not to deliver any opinion to 
the Queen, which rny stomach serveth me not to maintain ; one and 
the same conscience of duty guiding me and fortifying me. " (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. ii., p. 161.) He likewise uses such expressions as 
"bridled stomachs," "stomach of the times," etc. Note the em- 
phasis placed upon this word throughout the plays. And in The 
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 205, we have : " And verily, since this is the 
height of thy stomach, now they are at a distance from us, should 
they appear to thee as they did to him, they might put thee to second 
thoughts." In Richard IL, Act i., sc. 1, p. 23, we have : 

" High stomach'd are they both, and full of ire, 
. In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire." 



THE TEMPEST. 327 

I fear, forever : Milan and Naples^ have 
More widows in tliem of this business' making, 
Than we bring men to comfort them : the fault's 
Your own. 

Alon. So is the dear'st o' the loss. 

Oon. My lord Sebastian, 

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, 
And time to speak it in : you rub the sore, 
AVhen you should bring the plaster. ^ 

Seb. Very well. 

Atit. And most chirurgeonly. 

Gon. It is foul weather^ in us all, good sir, 
When you are cloudy. 

Seb. Foul weather ? 

Ajit. Very foul. 

Oon. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, — 

Ant. He'd sow't with nettles-seed." 

As James' son and daughter, heirs to England's throne, 
were now apparently lost to the Catholic cause, so Spanish 
interest ceased in Buckingham, through whom their proj- 
ects had been moved. James or Alonzo was now coming 
to realize that he was being merely trifled with, and so in 
the same scene, p. 49, following Gonzalo*s views of a 
commonwealth, we have : 

** Ant. Long live Gonzalo ! 

Oon. And, do you mark me, sir ? — 

Alon. Pr'ythee, no more : thou dost talk nothing to me. 

Oon. I do well believe your highness : and did it to minister 
occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble 
lungs, that they always use to laugh at nothing. 

Ant. 'Twas you we laugh'd at. 

Oon. Who, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you : 
so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still. 

Ant. What a blow was there given ! 

Seb. And it had not fallen flat-long. 

^ Spain in 1623 was in competition with France and Rome for 
Naples. See Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., pp. 464, 479, 500 ; and as to 
Milan see p. 472. 

2 To Bacon's use of this word "plaster" we have already called 
attention. See p. 108. 

^ In his Essay entitled " Of Seditions and Troubles" Bacon says : 
" So when any of the four pillars of government are mainly shaken 
or weakened (which are Religion, Justice, Counsel, and Treasure), 
men had needs to pray for fair weather." Already have we called 
attention to his use of the word " weather" as applied to mental 
states. 

^ We have likewise noted his application of the word " nettle" to 
the Catholics in his opening speech in Chancery, p. 301. 



328 THE TEMPEST. 

Oon. You are gentlemen of brave mettle: you would lift the 
moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks with- 
out changing." 

Ilume says : " Gondomar was at this time the Spanish 
ambassador in England, a man whose flattery was the 
more artful because covered with the appearance of frank- 
ness and sincerity — whose politics were the more dangerous 
because disguised under the mask of mirth and pleasant- 
ry. He now made offer of the second daughter of Spain 
to Prince Charles ; and, that he might render the tempta- 
tion irresistible to the necessitous monarch, he gave hopes 
of an immense fortune which should attend the princess. 
The court of Spain, though determined to contract no 
alliance with a heretic, entered into negotiations with 
James, which they artfully protracted, and, amid every 
disappointment, they still redoubled his hopes of success. 
The transactions in Germany, so important to the Austrian 
greatness, became every day a new motive for this duplicity 
of conduct." (Hume, vol. iv., p. 43.) 

Later in the same scene and act Buckingham, as An- 
tonio, is represented as trying to stimulate Sebastian to a 
plot to rid themselves of the King and Gonzalo, first by 
swords (pp. 50-56), and then by poison (pp. 72-77), and to 
the end that Sebastian, the real King of Spain, may have 
the crown. And so, beginning at p. 51, we have : 

" Seb. What a strange drowsiness possesses them ! 

Ant. It is the quality o' the climate. 

Seb. Why 

Doth it not then our eye-lids sink ? I find not 
Myself disposed to sleep. 

Ant. Nor I : my spirits are nimble. 

They fell together all, as by consent ;' 
They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. AVhat might 
Worthy Sebastian !— O, what might ! — No more : — 
And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face. 
What thou should 'st be : The occasion speaks thee ; and 
My strong imagination sees a crown 
Dropping upon thy head. 

Seb. What ! art thou waking ? 

Ant. Do you not hear me speak ? 

Seb. I do ; and, surely, 

It is a sleepy language ; and thou speak 'st 

* Bacon in many places speaks of the consent of bodies, and of 
their falling together as by consent. In sub. 36 of his Natural 
History we have : " For nothing is more frequent than motion of 
onsent in the body of man." And please see p. 48. 



THE TEMPEST. 329 

Out oP thy sleep : What is it thou didst say ? 
This is a strange repose, to be asleep 
With eyes wide open ; standing, speaking, moving, 
And yet so fast asleep. 

Ant. TSToble Sebastian, 

Thou let'st thy fortune sleep — die rather ; •wink'st'* 
Whiles thou art waking. 

Seb. Thou dost snore distinctly : 

There's meaning in thy snores. 

Ant. I am more serious than my custom : you 
Must be so too, if heed me ; which to do. 
Trebles thee o'er. 

Seb. Well ; I am standing water. 

Ant. I'll teach you how to flow. 

Seb. Do SO : to ebb. 

Hereditary sloth instructs thee. 

Ant. O ! 

If you but knew how you the purpose cherish, 
Whiles thus you mock it ! how, in stripping it, 
You more invest it ! Ebbing men, indeed, 
Most often do so near the bottom run 
By their own fear, or sloth. 

Seb. Pr'ythee, say on : 

The setting of thine eye, and cheek, proclaim 
A matter from thee ; and a birth, indeed, 
Which throes thee much to yield. 

Ant. Thus, sir : 

Although this lord of weak remembrance, this, 
(Who shall be of as little memory. 
When he is earth'd,) hath here almost persuaded 
(For he's a spirit of persuasion, only 
Professes to persuade) the King his sou's alive ; 
'Tis as impossible that he's undrow^n'd, 
As he, that sleeps here, swims. 

Seb. I have no hope 

That he's undrown'd. 

Ant. ! out of that no hope. 

What great hope have, you ! no hope, that w^ay, is 

^.^ As to this expression " out of " we quote Bacon thus : " This 
I speak not out of ostentation, but out of gladness, when I have 
done my duty," (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 208.) 
Z ^ Bacon's views concerning Cupid and Nox, or desire and night, 
have already passed under review. And so the word "wink" as 
used in the plays often Indicates, we think, a short night of desire. 
Bacon says : " It is strange how men, like owls, see sharply in the 
darkness of their own notions, but in the daylight of experience 
wink and are blind," (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 231.) And in Henry 
v.. Act v., sc. 2, p, 586, we have : 

" Ki?iff. Yet they do wink, and yield ; as love is blind, and 
enforces," 



330 THE TEMPEST. 

Another way so high a hope, that even 

Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, 

But doubts discovery there. Will you grant, with me, 

That Ferdinand is drown'd ? ^ 

Seh. He's gone. 

j^nt. Then tell me 

Who's tiie next heir of Naples ? 

Seh. Claribel. 

Ant. She that is queen of Tunis ; she that dwells 
Ten leagues beyond man's life ; she that from Naples 
Can have no note, unless the sun were post,^ 
(The man i' the moon's too slow, 3) till new-born chins 
Be rough and razorable : she, from whom 
We all were sea swallow 'd, though some cast again ; 
And, by that destiny, to perform an act, 
Whereof what's past is prologue ; what to come, 
In yours and my discharge. 

Scb. What stuff is this ! -How say you ? 

'Tis true my brother's daughter's queen of Tunis ; 
So is she heir of Naples ; 'twixt which regions 
There is some space. 

Ant. A space whose every cubit 

Seems to cry out, ' How shall that Claribel 
Measure us back to Naples ? '—Keep in Tunis, 
And let Sebastian waKe '.—Say, this were death 
That now hath seiz'd them ; why they were no worse 
Than now they are : There be,'* that can rule Naples 
As well as he that sleeps ; lords, that can prate 
As amply, and unnecessarily. 
As this Gonzalo ; I myself could make 
A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore 
The mind that I do ! what a sleep were this 
For your advancement ! Do you understand me ? 

Seh. Methinks, I do. 

Ant. And how does your content 

Tender your own good fortune ? 

Seh. I remember, 

You did supplant your brother Prospero.^ 

1 We understand the word " drowned, " as here used, to mean, 
lost to the Catholic cause. 

'^ "In process of time there came a post to the town again, and his 
business was with Mr. Ready-to-halt.' ' (The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 
406.) 

3 Is this an allusion to Bacon himself ? 

^ Bacon says : " Yet there be some that think their wits have been 
asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant, and to the 
quick." 

^ Sebastian here gives Antonio, or Buckingham, to understand 
that he does not purpose to rely upon his pretensions, and points 
him to his already treacherous dealings with Prospero, or Bacon. 
As to Buckingham's intentions to be rid of the king, see our quota- 
tion from Weldon's Court and Character of King James, p. 314. 



THE TEMPEST. 331 

Ant. 'True : 

And look how well my garments sit upon me ; 
Much feater than before : My brother's servants 
Were then my fellows, now they are my men. 

Seb. But, for your conscience — 

Ant. Ay, sir ; where lies that ? if it were a kybe 
'Twould put me to m}^ slipper ;'■ but I feel not 
This deity in my bosom : twenty consciences. 
That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they. 
And melt, ere they molest ! Here lies your brother, 
No better than the earth he lies upon. 
If he were that which now he's like, that's dead ; 
Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, 
Can lay to bed forever : whiles you, doing thus, 
To the perpetual wink for aye might put 
This ancient morsel, this sir Prudence, who 
Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, 
They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk ; 
They'll tell the clock"^ to any business that 
We say befits the hour. 

Seb. Thy case, dear friend,' 

Shall be my precedent : as thou got'st Milan, 
I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword : one stroke 
Shall free thee from the tribute Tvhich thou pay'sl ; 
And I the king shall love thee. 

Ant. Draw together 

And when I rear my hand, do you the like, 
To fall it on Gonzalo." 

Were there designs by Buckingham upon the life of King 
James? See statement at p. 314. 

Ariel averts the murder by waking Gonzalo, p. 55, thus : 

" Ari. My master through his art foresees the danger 
That you, his friend, are in ; and sends me forth, 
(For else his project dies,) to keep thee living. 

\ Sings in Gonzalo s ear. 
While you here do snoring lie, 
Open-ey'd conspiracy 

His time doth take : 
If of life you keep a care. 
Shake off slumber, and beware : 
Awake ! awake !" 

Kaving failed by the sword, poison is next resorted to. 
This is, by strange shapes, spread in the form of a banquet. 
And so in sc. 3, Act iii., pp. 72-77, we have : 

^ Promus, 712. {Jupiter's slipper. A man esteemed only for 
nearness to some great personage. — Eras. Ad., 5, 558.) 

'^ To this use of the word " clock" by Bacon, we have already 
called attention in connection with one of the sonnets. 



332 THE TEMPEST. 

" Alon. What harmony is this ? my good friends, hark ! 

Go7i. Marvellous sweet music ! 

Aloji. Give us kind keepers, heavens ! What were these ? 

Seb. A living drollery : Now I will believe 
That there are unicorns ; that in Arabia 
There is one tree, the phoenix' throne ; one phoenix 
At this hour reigning there. ^ 

Ant. I'll believe both ; 

And what does else want credit, come to me, 
And I'll be sworn 'tis true : Travellers ne'er did lie, 
Though fools at home condemn them.^ 

Gon. If in Naples 

I should report this now, would they believe me ? 
If I should say I saw such islanders, 
(For certes. these are people of the island,) 
Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet note, 
Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of 
Our human generation you shall find 
Many, nay, almost any. 

Pro. [Aside.] Honest lord, 

Thou hast said well ; for some of you there present 
Are worse than devils. 

1 Read in this connection Bacon's interpretation of the fable en- 
titled "Sphinx, or Science." In Addison, vol. iv., p. 371, it is 
turned into verse thus : 

" Sphinx was a monster, that would eat 

Whatever stranger she could get ; 

Unless his ready wit disclosed 

The subtle riddle she proposed. 

(Edipus was resolved to go. 

And try what strength of parts could do ; 

Says Sphinx, on this depends your fate ; 

Tell me what animal is that, 

Which has four feet at morning bright ? 

Has two at noon, and three at night ? 

'Tis man, said he, who, weak by nature. 

At first creeps, like his fellow-creature. 

Upon all four : as years accrue. 

With sturdy steps he w^alks on two : 

In age, at length, grows weak and sick, 

For his third leg adopts a stick. 

Now in your turn, 'tis just methinks. 

You should resolve me, Madame Sphinx, 

What strange creature yet is he. 

Who has four legs, then two, then three ; 

Then loses one, then gets two more, 

And runs away at last on four ?" 
Let the reader peruse the most subtle article in wiiich this riddle 
occurs. 

'^ There is here a subtle allusion, we think, to Buckmgham s repor 
upon his return with the Prince from Spain. 



THE TEMPEST." 333 

Alon. I cannot too much muse, 

Such shapes, such gestures, and such sound, expressing 
(Although they waut the use of tongue) a kind 
Of excellent dumb discourse. 

Pro. [Aside.'] Praise in departing. 

Fran. They vanish'd strangely. 

8eh. No matter, since 

They have left their viands behind ; for we have stomachs. — 
Wili't please you taste of what is here ? 

Alo7i. Not I.i 

Gon. Faith, sir, you need not fear. —When we were boys, 
Who would believe that there were mountaineers 
Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them 
Wallets of tiesh ? or that there were such men. 
Whose heads stood in their breasts ? which now we find, 
Each putter-out on five for one will bring us 
Good warrant of. 

Alon. I will stand to and feed,' 

Although rhy last : no matter, since I feel 
The best is past. — Brother, my lord the duke, 
Stand to, and do as we." 

At this instant Ariel enters and causes the banquet to 
vanish and then says : 

" Ari. You are three men of sin, whom destiny 
(That hath to instrument this lower world, 
And what is in't) the never-surfeited sea 
Hath caused to belch up, and on this island 
Where man doth not inhabit ; you 'mongst men 
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad ; 

iSeeing Alon. , Seb, , etc. , draic tlieir swords. 
And even with such like valour, men hang and drown 

* Note the expression " Not I," and the distinctive expression, 
** No, not I," found not only in the plays, but throughout the narra- 
tional portions of the Defoe literature, and in The Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress. This expression, " No, not I," will be found in The Pilgrim's 
Progress at pp. 65, 77, 216 ; and on 145 we have : 

" Chr. You say true ; but did you meet with nobody else in that 
valley ? 

Faith. No. not I ; for I had sunshine all of the rest of the way 
through that, and also through the Valley of the Shadow of Death." 
In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 277, we have : 

" Oph. My Lord, I have remembrances of yours, 
That I have longed long to re-deliver ; 
I pray you, now receive them. 

JJam. No, not I ; 

I never gave you aught." 

When Bacon made notes to the king they were called " Remem- 
brances for the King." See Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 139. 

"^ We here again have Bacon's distinctive use of the word '' feed." 
See p. 274. 



334 THE TEMPEST. 

Their proper selves. You fools ! I and my fellows 

Are ministers of fate : the Elements, 

Of whom 3^our swords are temper 'd, may as w^ell 

Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs 

Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish 

One dowle that's in my plume : my fellow-ministers 

Are like invulnerable : If you could hurt, 

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths, 

And will not be uplifted. ' But, remember. 

(For that's my business to you,) that you three 

From Milan did supplant good Prospero ; 

Expos 'd unto the sea, which hath requit it. 

Him, and his innocent child : for which foul deed 

The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have 

Inceus'd the seas and shores, yea all the creatures. 

Against your peace : Thee, of thy son, Alonzo, 

They have bereft ; and do pronounce by me. 

Lingering perdition (worse than any death 

Can be at once^ shall step by step attend 

You, and your ways ;^ whose wraths to guard you from, 

(Which here, in this most desolate isle, else fall 

tjpon your heads,) is notliiug, but heart's sorrow, 

And a clear life ensuing." 

Upon the breach of the SjDanish alliance Bacon had at 
once purposed an interview with the Prince, as will appear 
by his letter, quoted at p. 314. And so in the next speech 
Prospero, among other things, says : 

" My high charms work. 
And these, mine enemies, are all knit up 
In their distractions : they now are in my power ; 
And in these fits I leave them, whilst I visit 
Young Ferdinand (whom they suppose is drown'd,) 
And his and my lov'd darling." ^ 

Act iv. opens on the next page, p. 78, with Prosperous 
interview with the Prince, or Ferdinand, concerning 
Miranda, thus : 

" Pro. If I have too austerely punish'd you, 
Your compensation makes amends ; for I 

' Promus, 783. (To fight with shadows.) The alliance with Spain 
had now been broken, and new forcds were setting in. 

- This was in fact true. For, as we have already seen, out of the 
confusion which grew upon the breach of the Spanish alliance, the 
Prince and Buckingham took up an independent position as against 
the king, and he was ever after afraid of them. They were now 
with the populace. 

3 Bacon now hoped anew to interest the Prince in his philosophy, 
and presented iiim wilh its first book, the De Augmenlis, and con- 
gratulated him upon his return as a sound Protestant. 



THE TEMPEST. 335 

Have given you here a thread of mine own life 

Or that for which I live ; whom once again 

I tender to thy hand :' all thy vexations 

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou 

Hast strangely stood the test :^ here, afore Heaven, 

I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand ! 

Do not smile at me, that I boast her off. 

For thou shait find she will outstrip all praise, 

And make it halt behind her, 

Fer. I do believe it. 

Against an oracle. 

Pro. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition 
Worthily purchas'd, take m}^ daugbter ; But 
If thou dost break her virgin knot before 
All sanctimonious ceremonies may 
With full and holy rite be minister'd, 
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall 
To make this contract grow ; bat barren hate, 
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew 
The union of your bed with weeds so loatbly. 
That you shall hate it both : therefore, take heed, 
As Hymen's lamps shall light you. 

Fer. As 1 hope 

For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, 
With such love as 'tis now ; the murkiest den, 
The most opportune place, the strongest suggestion 
Our worser Genius can, shall never melt 
Mine honour into lust ; to take away 
The edge of that day's celebration. 
When 1 shall think, or Phcebus' steeds are founder'd, 
Or night kept chain'd below." 

But a little further on Prospero has occasion to caution 
him, and says : 

" Pro. Look, thou be true : do not give dalliance' 
Too much the reign ; the strongest oatlis are straw 
To the fire i' the blood : Be more abstemious, 
Or else, good night your vow !" 

Buckingham strove artfully to keep the Prince away 
from Bacon's influence. 

^ This identical expression, " thread of my life," may be foimd in 
Bacon's letter to Queen Elizabeth in 1599. (Bacon's Letters, vol. ii., 
p. 165) And in Addison, vol. ii., p. 346, we have: "He sees at 
one view the whole thread of my existence ; not only that part of it 
which I have already passed through, but that which runs forward 
into all the depths of eternity." 

^ These trials came before the breach of the Spanish alliance. See 
last half of sc. 2, Act i., and sc. 1, Act iii. 

^ This word " dalliance" is a Baconian word, and we shalllater 
give a quotation from him in which it occurs. 



33 G THE TEMPEST. 

Already have we alluded to the fact that the speeches 
of the n3^mphs, in this first section of Act iv. (see Jnno's 
song), shadow forth in part what Bacon claimed would 
result from wedding Miranda to power. But the blow 
upon Bacon or Prospero, and so upon Miranda, may be 
noted in the second of the following speeches by Ceres. 

" Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er 
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter ; 
Who with thy saffron^ wings upon my flowers 
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers ; 
And with each end of thy bhie bow dost crown 
My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd dow^n, 
Rich scarf to my proud earth ; — why hath thy queen 
Summon 'd me hither, to this short-grass 'd green ? 

Iris. A contract of true love to celebrate ; 
And some donation freely to estate j, 
On the bless'd lovers. 

Cer. Tell me, heavenly bow, 

If Venus, or her son, as thou dost know, 
Do now attend the queen ? since they did plot 
The means, that dusky Dis my daughter got, 
H-er and her blind boy's scandl'd company 
I have foresworn." 

See in this connection Bacon's interpretation of the 
fable entitled not Prospero, but " Prosperina, or Spirit," 
and wherein we find the following important words 
of this play — viz., "Ceres," "Dis," "Juno," "bed- 
fellow," " badge ;" as " Mark but the badges of these 
men my lords," and " Misery acquaints us with strange 
bed-fellows." (Works, vol. i., p. 310.) See p. Gl. 

Prospero or Prosperina is in this fable represented as 
the daughter of Ceres. Bacon in several places in his 
writings speaks of himself as a virgin.^ See pp. 47, 223 

' Please see p. 59 as to the use of this word saffron by Bacon. In 
The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 404, we have : "Here also grew cam- 
phire, with spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all 
the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, and with chief spices." 

2 In Book 1 of the De Augmeutis Bacon says : " Inventors, and 
authors of new arts or discoveries for the service of human life, 
were ever advanced amongst the gods, as in the case of Ceres, 
Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and others." As to " Ceres" we, from 
Addison, vol. i., p. 473, quote as follows : " Thus Ceres, the most 
beneficent and useful of the heathen divinities, has more statues than 
any other of the gods or goddesses, as several of the Roman em- 
perors took a pleasure to be represented in her dress. " This first 
volume of Addison is replete with the ]3aconiau mythology ; m 
other words, with his Wisdom of the Ancients. 



THE TEMPEST. 337 

and 290. Other relations with this fable exist,": but, as 
stated, we are but giving outline features of the play. 
In sc. 1, Act v., p. 93, w^e have : 

" But thi5? rough magic 
I here abjure : and, when I have requir'd 
Some heavenly music (which even now I do,) 
To woi k mine end upon their senses, that 
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, 
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth. 
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound 
I'll drown my book." 

Concerning the book, he, at the end of sc. 1, Act iii., 
says : 

"I'll to my book ; 
For yet, ere supper' time, must I perform 
Much business appertaining." 

But, again, in sc. 1, Act v., p. 98, the Prince and 
Miianda are represented as engaged in a game of chess, 
and Miranda would that the aim of the Prince in the game 
should be " a score of kingdoms." She says : 

" Mira. Sweet lord, you play me false. 

Fer. No, my dearest love, 

I would not for the world. 

Mira. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should w^rangle. 
And I would call it fair i^lay." 

And on the next page Gonzalo says : 

" Ooii. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue 
Should become kings of Naples ? O ! rejoice 
Beyond a common joy : and set it down 
AVith gold on lasting pillars : In ooe voyage 
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis ; 
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife 
Where he himself was lost ; Prospero his dukedom, 
In a poor isle ; and all of us ourselves, 
When no man was his own." ^ 



' Here, as in the play of Hamlet, the word "supper" probably 
means not where he eats, but where he is eaten. 

2 This speech deserves some little study. It should be'called info 
relations with events already recounted. It is a little singular, it is 
true, that Bacon should have put this speech into Gonzalo 's mouth, 
he representing Gondomar, who was so interested in Spain and its 
religion. But it must be remembered that Bacon was now trying to 
interest all Christian powers, of whatever persuasion, through a 
war against the Turks, to a new deal, so to speak, in Christendom. 
See p. 2.')0. This aim will be most clearly sei^n in the Serious Reflec- 
tions of Crusoe, and in which aim he sought to interest or enlist pos- 



338 THE TEMPEST. 

Ill earlier pages we have seen that Bacon sought to make 
Britain in reality what the Spanish monarchy had been 
in mere name, and in the doing of this his philosophy was 
to light the way and to open that " brave new world" 
spoken of by Miranda. At about this time he was engaged 
in his fragment of the Holy War against the Turks — note 
that in all of these writings the same views are entertained 
as to the Turks — and was laboring diligently to stay the 
then tendencies toward paganism, as well as toward Rome, 
by uniting the Catholics and all Christian powers against 
paganism, with the view of wiping it from existence. And 
this point, as we have seen, Bacon asked the king to have 
incorporated into the marriage treaty of Prince Charles 
with the Infanta. Digby went as an ambassador to IBpain 
partly to conduct the marriage treaty, and partly to effect 
some arrangement to suppress the pirates of Algiers and 
Tunis, now so troublesome to English vessels. See Tunis 
in the play, and of which Claribel is represented as queen. 
Its history begins with the Phoenician colonies. It was 
the most important part of the province of Africa. And 
in the early history of Latin Christianity, Africa holds a 
place even more important than Italy. It, in fact, took 
origin in Africa.' Let the early relations between Tunis 
and Naples be investigated, as well as relations touching 
Milan. ^ Did not Bacon's intention, alluded to in his 
mentioned prayer, lie in the directions indicated? 

But if the reader would correctly interpret this great 
work, he must carefully possess himself of the thought 

terity. Much of the Defoe literature, and particularly the History of 
the Devil, has this aim in view, and where will be found many phases 
of the Holy War, as embodied not only in Bacon's fragment, but in 
the Bunyan work. Concerning Diabolus, the character personating 
the Devil in the Bunyan work, we from the " History of the Devil," 
p. 288, quote as follows : " It is said also, and I am apt to believe it, 
that he [the Devil] was very familiar with that holy father, Pope 
Sylvester II., and some charge him with personating Pope Hilde- 
brand the infamous, on an extraordinary occasion, and himself sitting 
in the chair apostolic, in a full congregation ; and you may hear 
more of this hereafter ; but as I do not meet with Pope Diabolus 
among the list, in all father Platina's Lives of the Popes, so I am 
willing to leave it as I find it." 

' And, as we have seen in the play, the king is censured for having 
given his daughter m marriage to an xifrican. 

'^ Observe also in this play, in the Serious Reflections of Robinson 
Crusoe, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, and in other portions of this 
literature the mention of Queen Dido. 



THE TEMPEST. 339 

already presented that James, 'or the King, stands in a 
couplet, a double relation, on the one hand toward Eng- 
land, and on the other toward Spain, ^ as also does his great 
screen, Buckingham, and who is willing to sell out Milan, 
as will appear, sc. 2, Act i., p. 25, where Prospero, as 
to Buckingham, or Antonio, says : 

" Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'cl 
And him he play'd it for, he needs will be 
Absolute Milan : Me, poor man ! — my library 
Was dukedom large enough : of temporal royalties 
He thinks me now incapable ; confederates 
(So dry lie was for sway) with the Kiug of Naples, 
To give him annual tribute, do him homage, 
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend 
The dukedom, yet unbow'd (alas, poor Milan !) 
To most ignoble stooping." 

Buckingham at first confederates with the King, w^ho, 
though standing in his relation to the crown of England, has 
still become so absorbed in Naples, or Spain, as to be repre- 
sented as its king, and the real king as his brother. 
Spain, as we have seen, had now hopes of absorbing Eng- 
land to its purposes. It was this intimacy with Spain 
that caused Gonzalo in the wrecking scene to say : 

" Gon. The King and prince at prayers ! let us assist them, 
For our cause is as theirs." 

Prospero' s speech prior to that last given is as follows : 

' ' Pro. I pray thee, mark me. 

I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated 
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind 
With that, which, but by being so retir'd, 
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother 
Awak'd an evil nature : and my trust, 
Like a good parent,^ did beget of him 



^ Promus, 1033. ( Te shall sing in alternate verses. Said of couplets 
made by two rivals alternately.) See Love's Labour's Lost, Act iii., 
sc. 1. And note the word " goose," later to be called under review. 

^ As to these words, " Like a good parent," we quote from a letter 
by Bacon to the king in 1617 touching Buckingham, and the 
already mentioned marriage of his brother to Coke's daughter, thus : 
" Now, for the manner of my affection to my Lord of Buckingham, 
for whom I would spend my life, and that which is to me more, the 
cares of my life ; I must humbly confess, that it w^as in this a little 
parent-like, this being no other term, than his lordship hath hereto- 
fore vouchsafed to my counsels ; but in truth, and it please your 
majesty, without any grain of disesteem for his lordship's discre- 



340 THE TEMPEST. 

A falseliood, in its contrary as great 

As my trust was ; which liad, indeed, no limit, 

A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, 

Not only with what my revenue yielded, 

But what my power might else exact, — like one, 

Who having, unto truth, by telling of it, 

Made such a sinner of his memory. 

To credit his own lie, — he did believe 

He was indeed the duke ; out o' the substitution, 

And executing the outward face of royalty, 

With all prerogative : — Hence his ambition 

Growing, — Dost thou hear ?" 

Keeping, therefore, the two courses and the mentioned 
dual relations clearly in view, and allowing for poetic 
license, this hitherto quite inexplicable play will yield to 
the mind such relations, we think, as must bring the con- 
clusion that Bacon, and not Shakespeare was its author ; 
and if of it, so of all the plays. 

Hudson says : " The Tempest was first printed in the 
folio of 1623, in which edition it stands the first of the 
series. As this play was undoubtedly written in the later 
years of the poet's life, the reason of its standing first is 
not apparent." He, however, says that a play by this 
name was performed in the beginning of the year 1613 
" before Prince Charles, the Princess Elizabeth, and the 
Prince Palatine." This is doubtless true, and done in 
honor of the then marriage of the princess to the Prince 
Palatine, Bacon, as we have seen, preparing the papers 
for the occasion, as already stated, and doubtless also the 
mask or play which was performed in honor of it. From 
this The Tempest in its present form was, we think, a re- 
construction or rewriting to suit it to new relations to be 
portrayed. Prince Charles being substituted for Frederick 
the Fifth, the Prince Palatine. 

In this way masks or plays were doubtless at times per- 
formed, without permitting them to go into print. They 
could thus at any time be reproduced as a new work, 
should occasion require or a desire exist to reproduce them 
in greater perfection.^ 

tion. For I know him to be naturally a man, of a sound and staid 
wit, as I ever said unto your majesty. And, again, I know he hath 
the best tutor in Europe. But yet I was afraid that the height of 
his fortune might make him too secure ; and as the proverb is, a 
looker-on sometimes seeth more than a gamester." (Works, vol. ii., 
p. 519.) 

' Hudson's introduction to the play of Much Ado About Noth- 



THE TEMPEST. 341 

But the strange character known as Caliban in this play 
remains yet to be considered. What, in nature, is this 
character intended to represent? It is called a monster.' 

Prospero acknowledges the character as his own produc- 
tion, and calls it a thing of darkness, a demi-devil. We 
understand it to be a made-up character to represent cer- 
tain low influences at work to supplant him and his 
Miranda. An intention to be rid of the king, already 
considered, springs from out his own party — that is, 
the one pursuing the first-mentioned course. From 
the other course, the rabble, aided by this monster, 
springs a like desire to be rid of Prospero. Those in the 
first party who would be rid of the king we understand to 
be the monster in the second course. This was chiefly 
urged by Antonio, Sebastian regarding it but a wild 
scheme. In this background sense we understand Buck- 
ingham, as the tool of Spain and the Catholic cause, to 
represent the thing of darkness, the demi-devil. These 
influences were, we think, the unseen hand in the catch 
yet to be considered. Buckingham greatly feared Bacon's 
influence with the Prince, and so ever stood in the way of 
his pardon, as a careful study of the facts will show. As 
originally written, we think the monster may have been 
designed to represent paganism, or the deformed body of 
the times, at that period. From Weldon's Court and 
Character of King James, p. 43, we quote concerning 
Buckingham as follows : " And now is Purheck mad, and 

in<? opens thus : " The earliest notice that has reached us of Much 
Ado About Nothing is an entry in the books of the Stationer's Com- 
pany, bearing date August 4, 1600, and running thus : 
' As You Like It, a book. "1 

•Henry the Fifth, a book. y To be stayed. ' 

Every Man m his Humour, a book, j ^ 

' Much Ado About Nothing, a book. J 

Wliy these phiys were thus entered and the publication stayed, can- 
not be certainly determined ; probably it was to protect the author- 
ized publishers and the public against those ' stolen and surrepti- 
tious copies ' which the editors of the folio allege to have been put 
forth." 

^ Note that Sycorax, the mother of Caliban, is represented as born 
at Algiers. (Sc. 2, Act i., p. 34.) Algiers was under the control of the 
Turkish pirates from 1516 to 1830. Spain, France, and England 
had alternately tried to subdue them, England sending a tieet in 
1620, under the command of Sir Robert Mansell, but which returned 
without effecting anything. 



342 THE TEMPEST. 

put from Court, now none great with Buckingham, but 
Bawds and Parasites, and such as humoured him, in his 
unchaste pleasures ; so that since his first being a pretty, 
harmless, affable Gentleman, he grew insolent, cruel, and 
a monster not to be endured." 

And on the next page it is stated that he was *' nothing 
but a pack of ignorance sawthered together with impru- 
dence to raise him (besides his marriage in the lusty 
kindred)." Bacon, as we have seen, gave him much good 
counsel, but, as stated in the play, p. 325, it was "all, all 
lost," and Bacon for some time had been laboring most dili- 
gently, we think, to bring the pinches upon him. 

It must, however, be distinctly remembered that this play 
was written or completed at a time when the Spanish alli- 
ance was broken off, and when Bacon supposed himself 
again above the influences that had been at work against 
him, and which influences he had already in turn begun to 
make serve him and his Miranda. See Ariel's speech to 
the three men of sin, and whose swords are represented as 
already powerless, p. 333. The influences combining against 
Protestantism had been broken. And so Caliban and all 
he is intended to represent, though secretly plotting 
against, is now at the service of Prospero and Miranda, 
and " time goes upright with his carriage." 

As in the early part of the play we have traced the two 
courses, so let their influence be noted in what follows. 
In sc. 2, Act iii., p. 71, the following speeches occur be- 
tween Caliban and Stephano, the King's drunken butler, 
he and Trinculo being tools of the rabble, and to whom 
Caliban, in order to get his ends served, is willing to 
humble himself, and who finally concedes to Stephano the 
power to rule. He says : 

" Gal. Tliou makest me merry : I am fall of pleasure. 
Let us be jocund •} Will you troll the catch 
You taught me but while-ere ? 

Ste. At thy request, monster, I will do reason,^ any reason : 

> This word "jocund" may be found throughout these writings. 
Bacon says: "With arts voluptuary I couple practices j'on/^ary / 
for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the senses." 
(Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 379.) In The Pil^^rim's Progress, p. 379, 
we have : " Now, when Feeblemind and Ready-to-halt saw that it 
was the head of Giant Despair indeed, they were very jocund and 
merry. ' ' 

■^ Note the distinctive and unusual expression " I will do reason." 



THE TEMPEST. 343 

Come on, Trinculo, let us sing. [Si7igs. 

Flout 'em, and skout 'em ; and skout 'em, and flout *em ; 
Thought is free." ' 

This we take to have been the feeling of the rabble tow- 
ard both Bacon and the king. But Caliban says : 

" Cal. That's not the tune. 

[Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe. 
Ste. What's this same ? 

Trin. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the picture of 
Nobody." 

Stephano does not appear to recognize the real situation, 
bat Ariel here gives him the cue, and he then says : 

" Ste. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness : if thou 
beest a devil, lake't as thou list. 
Tri7i. O, forgive me my sins !" 

This picture of " Nobody/' this unseen hand in the 
catch, though not the occasion, was still, we judge, the 
subtle background cause in Bacon's overthrow.'* In sc. 
1, Act ii., p. 45, Prospero is represented as not knowing 
the true cause of his troubles, and probably Bacon did 
not at the first. He says : "I thank God I am so far 
from thinking to retrieve a fortune, as I did not mark 
where the game fell." The notes from which this quo- 
tation is taken were in Greek characters, and concerned the 
sequestration of his estate, and were made preparatory to 
an interview with Cranfield in 1622. (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vii., p. 396.) 

AVhether or not we be right concerning this strange 
character , we may at least be permitted to ask the reader 
to place our outline by the side of what he shall find else- 
where written concerning it.' 

Bacon says : " Therefore I pray your Lordship that I may know and 
be informed from himself what passed touching his consent, and I 
will do him reason." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 293.) He like- 
wise makes use of that strange expression " discourse of reason," and 
in Hamlet we have : 

" O God ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 
Would have mourn 'd longer." 

> Promus, 653. Thought is free. 

' He had said biting things concerning Spain, Rome, and the 
Catholics, and their opportunity came, and was made easy through 
the envy of Coke and others. 

^ Bacon, sitting as his own critic, says : " Milton's characters, most 



344 THE TEMPEST. 

In sc. 2, Act ii., p. 59, Stephano says : 

" Ste. Four legs and two voices ! a most delicate monster. His 
forward voice now is to speak well of his friends ; his backward voice 
is to utter foul speeches,^ and to detract. If all the wine in my bottle 
will recover him, I will help his ague : Come, — Amen ! I will pour 
some in thy other mouth." 

And as Caliban is represented as having more than one 
voice, so is he of trying, at once, to go different ways, 
Stephano saying in his previous speech to him, " Come on 
your ways." 

The robbing of Prosper© we have noted at Ariel's second 
entrance, sc. 1, Act iv., p. 86. '■^ And near the close of 
the play, p. 101, these characters in their stolen apparel 
appear before Alonzo, Sebastian, Antonio, and Prospero, 
when Stephano says : 

" Ste. Every man shifts for all the rest, and let no man take care 
for himself ; for all is but fortune : — Coragio, bully-monster, coragio ! 

Trill. If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a 
goodly sight. 

Cal. O Setebos ! these be bra ve^ spirits, indeed, 
How fine my master is ! I am afraid 
He will chastise me. 



of them, lie out of nature, and were to be formed purely by his own 
invention. It shows a greater genius in Shakespear to have drawn 
his Caliban than his Hotspur or Julius Cresar : the one was to be 
supplied out of his own imagination, whereas the other might have 
been formed upon tradition, history, and observation." Note the 
words *' out of." (Addison, vol. iii., p. 18G.) 

^ Note the use of the word "speeches" in every phase of this 
literature and in exclusion of synonymous words. 

^ Read in this connection chapter 10 of Gulliver's Travels concern- 
ing the struldrugs. This satire is designed to show the power of 
avarice. It ends thus : " Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary 
consequent of old age, those immortals would in time become pro- 
prietors of the whole nation and engross the civil power, which, for 
want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public." 

^ Let the word " brave" as used by Bacon be particularly noted, 
and so let it be noted throughout. In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 80, 
we have : " May I get out again with my life, you shall possess the 
brave country alone for me." And on p. 284 we have: ''When 
the Interpreter had shown them this, he had them into the very 
best room in the house ; a very brave room it was." In his essay 
entitled " Of Plantations," Bacon says : " If there be iron ore, and 
streams whereon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where 
wood abouudeth." 



THE TEMPEST. 345 

Seb. Ha, ha ! 

What things are these, my lord Antonio ? 
Will money buy them ? 

Ant. Very like : one of them 

Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. 

Pro. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, 
Then say if they be true : — 
This misshappen knave, 
His mother was a witch ; and one so strong 
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, 
And deal in her command, without her power -.^ 
These three have robb'd me ; and this demi devil, 
(For he is a bastard one,) had plotted with them 
To take my life : two of these fellows you 
Must know, and own ; this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine. 

Cal. I shall be pinch'd to death. 

Aloii. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler ? 

Seb. He is drunk now : Where had he wine ? 

Alon. And Trinculo is reeling ripe : Where should they 
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them ? 
How came they in this pickle ?" 

Calibim is said to be a bastard character — that is, not a 
real one, as he was but a product of Bacon's own pen. 
Under it was couched the background influences tliat had 
been at work against him.'^ And now, with the prom- 
ised, story of his life, the delightful story of Crusoe, and 
which time shall never cut from memory, does Prospero 
bring this sab tie piece of work to a close in these words : 

" Pro. Sir, I invite your highness, and your train, 
To my poor cell : where you shall take vour rest 
For this one night ; which, part of it, I'll waste 
With such discourse, as, I not doubt, shall make it 

' Concorning Buckingham's mother in 1622, and who had finan- 
cial interest in Bacon's affairs, Mr. Spedding says: "Towards tlie 
end of September the countess was sent away from the court in con- 
sequence of an open relapse to Popery, and confined to her house at 
Dalby in Leicestershire ; but whatever communication Bacon had 
had with her seems to have been of some use. For we shall shortly 
see Buckingham stirring himself with more effect than he had done 
of late : and the next letter addressed to her in her banishment 
acknowledges Bacon's sense of obligation for what she had done." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 392.) Cranfield was likewise con- 
cerned. Please see pp. 388-402. On p. 406 we find Bacon him- 
self to say that he had gone to a " cell," meaning to Gray's Inn. 
The letters that a man writes while seeking to prevent the seques- 
tration of his estate should not only be looked at, but looked under. 

^ Note here the concluding epilogue to this play. 



346 THE TEMPEST. 



Go quick away : the story of my life. 
And Ihc particular accidents gone by, 
Since 1 came to this isle : And in the morn 
I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples, 
Where I have hope to see the nuptial 
Of these our dear-beloved solemniz'd ; 
And thence retire me to my Milan, w^here 
Every third thought shall be my grave." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



In" what Sir Fniiicis Bacon did for the race, he started 
at home, started in his own soul, and studied it — its emo- 
tions, its motiv^es, its passions, as well as its objective 
activities ; and with it, and with all the impetus which he 
could gather to it, from both research and imagination, 
did he paint forth every phase of our human life.' With 
his views one age is hut a type of all ages, and one soul 
but a type of the souls of all. For these reasons we find 
him largely though covertly self-centred in his work.^ 
lie was the radius from which to insinuate all knowledge. 
He was indeed the Great Monk that retired not his 
thoughts, nor his body, but who hooded his personality 
from j^ortions of his work, leaving them thus to time.^ 
And in the beautiful allegory of Crusoe may bo found much 
concerning his life aims. But as space will not permit 
us to trace that portion of the work most in harmony with 
material already introduced, and the story also, we there- 
fore at once proceed to that portion of the work founded 
upon the story, and known as the " Serious Reflections." 
Its first chapter, with distinctive views upon the subject 
of solitude, opens thus : 

" I have frequently looked back, you may be sure, and 
that with different thoughts, upon the notions of a long 
tedious life of solitude, which I have represented to the 

^ " He doth in holy abstinence subdue 
That in himself which he spurs on his power to qualify in otliers." 

— M. M., iv., 2. 

2 Promus, 36. (I am a man. Naught that is man's do I regard 
as foreign to myself.) 

^ Bacon says : " The only author I like is time." (Phil. Works, 
vol. iv., p. 489.) Promus, 449. (Fulness of power is fulness of time 
or season. ) Promus, 841. So give authors their due as you give time 
his due, which is to discover truth. 



348 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

world, and of which you must have formed some ideas from 
the life of a man in an island. Sometimes I have won- 
dered how it could be supported, especially for the first 
years, when the change was violent and imposed, and nature 
unacquainted with anything like it. Sometimes I have as 
much wondered why it should be any grievance or affliction, 
seeing upon the whole view of the stage of life which we act 
upon in this world, it seems to me that life in general is, or 
ought to be, but one universal act of solitude ; but I find 
it is natural to judge of happiness by its suiting or not 
suiting our own inclinations. Everything revolves in 
our minds by innumerable circular motions,' all centring 
in ourselves. We judge of prosperity and of affliction, 
joy and sorrow, poverty, riches, and all the various 
scenes of life — I say,^ we judge of them by ourselves. 
Thither we bring them home, as meats touch the palate, 
by which we try them ; the gay part^ of the world, or the 
heavy part ; it is all one,"* they call it pleasant or unpleas- 
ant, as they suit our taste/ 

" The world, I say, is nothing to us but as it is more or 
less to our relish. All reflection is carried home,'' and 

^ Bacon likens the motions of mind to m.otions in the heavens. 
As to circular motion he says :• " For circular motion is intermi- 
nable, and for its own sake. Motion in a straight line is to an end, 
and for the sake of something, and as it were to obtain rest." 
(Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 478.) See note 1, p. 127. 

2 Bacon's mode of throwing in the expression " I say" is very 
noticeable in all these writings. 

^ Carefully observe the use of this word " part" throughout. 
When once Bacon has placed a word, that is the word for that place. 
See pp. 58 and 7.1, and note 3, p. 34. 

** To this expression we have later called attention. It was common 
with Bacon. See it in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 220. And in 
Henry IV., part 1, Act iv., sc. 2. p. 261, we have : 

" But that's all one ; they'll find linen enough on every hedge." 

Promus, 196. All is one. Contrariorum eadem est ratio (of con- 
traries the account to be given is the same), 

5 Promus, 453. (Naught thrives but what is shameless — every 
one cares for his own pleasure alone.) And Bacon says : " See you 
not that all men seek themselves. But it is only the lover that finds 
himself." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 487.) 

^ As to the word "home," Bacon, in a letter to Sir Thomas 
Bodley, on presenting him witli a copy of the Advancement of 
Learning in 1605, says : " For I do confess since I was of any under- 
staudiiig my mind hath in elfect been abscint, from that 1 have done ; 
and in absjeuce are many eirors which I do willingly acknowledge ; 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 349 

our dear self is, in one respect, the end of living. Hence 
man may be properly said to be alone in tlie midst of the 
crowds and hurry of men of business. All the reflec- 
tions which he makes are to himself ; all that is pleasant 
he embraces for himself ; all that is irksome and grievous 
is tasted but by his own palate. 

" What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what 
their joys? Something we may be touched indeed with 
by the power of sympathy, and a secret turn of the affec- 
tions ; but all the solid reflection is directed to ourselves. 
Our meditations are all solitude in perfection ; our pas- 
sions are all exercised in retirement ; we \o\e, we hate, 
Ave covet, we enjoy, all in privacy and solitude. All that 
we communicate of those tilings to any other, is but for 
their assistance in the pursuit of our desires ; the end is 
at home ; the enjoyment, the contemplation, is all soli- 
tude and retirement ; it is for ourselves we enjoy, and for 
ourselves we suffer. 

'• What, then, is the silence of life?' And how is it 
afflicting while a man has the voice of his soul to speak to 

and amongst the rest this great one that led the rest ; that knowing 
myself by inward cahing to be fitter to hold a book than to play a 
part, I have led my life in civil causes ; for which I was not very 
fit by nature, and more unfit b}^ the preoccupation of my mind. 
Therefore calling myself liome, I have now for a time enjoyed 
myself ; Mdiereof likewise I desire to make the w^orld partaker," 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. iii., p. 253.) Promus, 48. He 'echo is mean at 
home is mean at Saville {abroad). Promus, 722. (To make conjec- 
tures at home. — Eras. Ad., 335.) In his Essay entitled " Of Dis- 
course," he says : " Speech of touch towards others should be 
sparingly used : for discourse ought to be as a field, without coming 
home to any man." In Othello, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 452, we have : 

''Cas. He speaks home, madam : you may relish him more in the 
soldier than in the scholar." 

We have many references of this character in the plays, as also of 
the expression " it is all one." 

^ Promus, 419. (He w^ho is silent is strong.) Bacon's article on 
" The Praise of Knowledge" opens thus : " Silence were the best 
celebration of that which I mean to commend ; for who would not 
use silence, wiiere silence is not made, and what crier can make 
silence in such a noise and tumult of vain and popular opinion. My 
praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself." And in the Merchant 
of Venice, Act iii., se. 5, p. 93, we have : 

" Lor. How" every fool can play upon the word ! I think the best 
grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow com- 
mendable in none only but parrots." 

And please see the Addison article on Silence, vol. ii., pp. 96-99. 



350 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

God and to himself ? That man can never want conver- 
sation who is company for himself, and he that cannot 
converse profitably with himself is not fit for any conver- 
sation at all. And yet there are many good reasons why 
a life of solitude, as solitude is now understood by the 
age, is not at all suited to the life of a Christian or a wise 
man. AVithout inquiring, therefore, into the advantages 
of solitude, and how it is to be managed, I desire to be 
heard concerning what solitude really is ;' for I must con- 
fess I have different notions about it, far from those which 
are generally understood in the world, and far from all 
those notions upon which those people in the primitive 
times, and since then also, acted ; who separated them- 
selves into deserts and unfrequented places, or confined 
themselves to cells, monasteries, and the like, retired, as 
they call it, from the world. ^ All which, I think, have 
nothing of the thing I call solitude in them, nor do they 
answer any of the true ends of solitude, much less those 
ends which are pretended to be sought after by, those who 
have talked most of those retreats from the world. 

'* As for confinement in an island, if the scene was 
placed there for this very end, it were not at all amiss.^ 
I must acknowledge there was confinement from the en- 
joyments of the world, and restraint from human society. 

^ Iq his Essay entitled " Of Friendship," Bacon says : *' But little 
do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. " See 
this essay. 

^ Read what Bacon says as to the contemplative and monastic life. 
(Phil. Works, vol. v., pp. 8-11 and pp. 251. 266, 277.) In the 
youthful treatise the Anatomy of Abuses, Philo, or Philoponus, is 
the chit'f character. Let the Britaniiica article on Philo be read, 
and let it be investigated as to whether any and what relation ex- 
ists between these two characters. It see'ms that the expression 
" G-ood morrow," found in Bacon's Promus Notes, as No. 1189, is 
not found in English books prior to the issue of the Anatomy of 
Abuses, which opens by one of the two disputants saying, " God 
give. you good morrow. Master Philoponus. " Promus, 1196. I 
iiave not said all my prayers till I have bid you good morrow." 
And note the expression throughout the plays. Is it not a little 
singular if Bacon be not author of the plays, that so many of his 
Promus Notes are found nowhere in his attributed writings, but 
are spread everywhere in the plays ? 

^ As to islands, see Bacon's private notes. Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., 
p. 77, and where we have : " A fayre bridg to y^ Middle great Hand 
onely, y« rest by bote." Do not "fail to see in this connection the 
Addison article on islands, vol. ii,, pp. 499-504. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 351 

But all that was not solitude ; indeed no part of it was so, 
except that which, as in my story, I applied to the con- 
templation of sublime things,^ and that was but a very 
little, as my readers well know, compared to what a length 
of years my forced retreat lasted. 

''It is evident then, that, as I see nothing but what is 
far from being retired in the forced retreat of an island, 
the thoughts being in no composure suitable to a retired 
condition— no, not for a great while ; so I can affirm, 
that I enjoy much more solitude in the middle of the 
greatest collection of mankind in the world, I mean, at 
London, while I am writing this, than ever I could say 
I enjoyed in eight-and-twenty years' confinement to a 
desolate island.'^ ^ 

On page 8, the chapter opening on p. 7, we have : 

" A man under a vow of perpetual silence, if but rigor- 
ously observed, would be, even on the Exchange of Lon- 
don, as perfectly retired from the world as a hermit in his 
cell, or a solitaire in the deserts of Arabia ; and if he is able 
to observe it rigorously may reap all the advantages of those 
solitudes without the unjustifiable part of such a life, and 
without the austerities of a life among brutes. For the 
soul of a man, under a due and regular conduct, is as capa- 
ble of reserving itself, or separating itself from the rest 
of human society, in the midst of a throng, as it is when 
banished into a desolate island. 

" The truth is, that all those religious hermit-like soli- 
tudes, which men value themselves so much upon, are but 
an acknowledgment of the defect or imperfection of our 
resolutions, our incapacity to bind ourselves to needful 
restraints, or rigorously to observe the limitations we have 
vowed ourselves to observe.^ Or, take it thus, that the 
man first resolving that it would be his felicity to be en- 

^ By an adroit use of silence this point, the sublime, is often reached 
in the drama. See Addison articles upon this point, and particularly 
vol. ii., pp. 96-99. Bacon says : " Silence gives to words both 
grace and authority." He says : " Silence is the sleep which nour- 
ishes wisdom." He says: "Silence is the ferment"of thought." 
He says: "Silence is the style of wisdom." He says: "Silence 
aspireth after truth." He says: "Silence is a kind of solitude." 
(Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 485.) See p. 298, note 3. 
^ Promus, 268. (A great city or state is a great solitude.) 
^ These limitations Bacon never permitted himself to violate. See 
p. 298. 



352 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

tirely ^iven up to conversing only with heaven and 
heavenly tilings, to be separated to prayer and good works, 
but being sensible how ill such a life will agree with flesh 
and blood, causes his soul to commit a rape upon his 
body, and to carry it by force, as it were, into a desert, or 
into a religious retirement, from whence it cannot return, 
and where it is impossible for it to have any converse with 
mankind, other than with such as are under the same 
vows and the same banishment. The folly of this is 
evident many ways. ^ 

*' I shall bring it home to the case in hand thus : Chris- 
tians may, without doubt, come to enjoy all the desirable 
advantages of solitude, by a strict retirement and exact 
government of their thoughts, without any of these for- 
malities, rigors, and apparent mortifications, which I think 
I justly call a rape upon human nature, and consequently 
without the breach of Christian duties, which they neces- 
sarily carry with them, such as rejecting Christian com- 
munion, sacraments, ordinances, and the like. 

'' There is no need of a wilderness to wander among 
wild beasts, no necessity of a cell on the top of a moun- 
tain, or a desolate island in the sea ; if the mind be con- 
fined, if the soul be truly master of itself, all is safe ; for 
it is certainly and effectually master of the body, and what 
signify retreats, especially a forced retreat, as mine was ? 
The anxiety of my circumstances there, I can assure you, 
was such for a time, as were very suitable for heavenly 
meditations, and even when that was got over, the fre- 
quent alarms from the savages put the soul sometimes to 
such extremities of fear and horror, that all manner of 
temper was lost, and 1 was no more fit for religious exer- 
cises than a sick man is fit for labor. 

" Divine contemplations require a composure of soul, 
uninterrupted by any extraordinary motions or disorders 
of the passions ;"' and this, I say, is much easier to be ob- 

' Tills is a distinct Baconian expression, and particularly as to the 
use of the words " many ways," as is also the earlier expression, 
" Or take it thus." 

* We here have Bacon's distinctive expression "motions of the 
passions." We likewise find him using the expressions " motions of 
anger ;" " motions of envy ;" " motions of the imagination ;" 
"motion of gravity;" "motion of inflammation;" "motion of 
consent ;" etc. And even as to time he says : " The time also of 
this justice hath had his true motions," (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 353 

tained and enjoyed in tlie ordinary course of life, than in 
monkish cells and forcible retreats.^ 

" The business is to get a retired soul, a frame of mind 
truly elevated above the world, and then we may be alone 
whenever we please, in the greatest apparent hiirry of 
business or company. If the thoughts are free, and 
rightly unengaged, what imports the employment the body 
is engaged in ? Does not the soul act by a differing 
agency, and is not the body the servant, nay, the slave of 
the soul ? "^ Has the body hands to act, or feet to walk, 
or tongue to speak, but by the agency of the understand- 
ing and will, which are the two deputies of the soltI's 
power? Are not all the affections and all the passions, 
which so universally agitate, direct, and possess the body, 
nre they not all seated in the soul ? What have we to do, 
then, more or less, but to get the soul into a superior 
direction and elevation? There is no need to prescribe 
the body to this or tliat situation ; the hands, or feet, or 
tongue, can no more disturb the retirement of the soul, 
than a man having money in his pocket can take it out, 

p. 303). We now give what we regard as a cliucliing instance as to 
tlie oneness of Bacon and Shakespeare, in that most rare expression 
" motion of the sense," and found as follows. In Measure for 
Measure, Act i., so. 5, p. 36, we have : 

" Upon his place, 
And with full line of his authority, 
Governs lord Angelo ; a man whose blood 
Is very snow broth ; one who never feels 
The wanton stings and motions of the sense ; 
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge 
With profits of the mind, study and fast." 

In the De Augnientis, ch. 4, Book 3, Bohn ed., p. 135, we have : 
" As for voluntary motion in animals, — the motion in the action of the 
senses, the motions of the imagination, appetite, and will, the motion 
of the mind, and the determination, and other intellectual faculties, 
— they have their own proper doctrines under which we range them, 
confining the whole of physics to matter and efiicient, and assigning 
over forms and ends to metaphysics," 

^ And thus our " Great Monk," our " Mortal Moon," labored in 
his own way for the good of men. And his praise, as stated in our 
introductory sonnet, may yet find room, even in the eyes of all 
posterity that wears this world out to the ending doom. 

^ In this connection please see Sonnet 146, As to the " outward 
walls" of the soul, there mentioned, see Banyan's " Hoi}'- War" 
and the allegory of "Parley the Porter," attached to Penn's max- 
ims, to which we shall later have occasion to allude. 



354 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

or pay it, or dispose of it by his hand, without his own 
knowledge. 

"It is the sours being entangled by outward objects, 
that interrupts its contemplation of divine objects, whicli 
is the excuse for these solitudes, and makes the removing 
the body from those outward objects seemingly necessary ; 
but what is there of religion in all this ? For example, 
a vicious inclination, removed from the object, is still a 
vicious inclination, and contracts the same guilt as if the 
object were at hand ; for if, as our Saviour says, ' He that 
looketh on a woman to lust after her,' that is, to desire 
her unlawfully, has committed the adultery already, so it 
will be no inverting our Saviour's meaning to say that he 
that thinketh of a woman to desire her unlawfully, has 
committed adultery with her already, though he has not 
looked on her, or has not seen her at that time. And 
how shall this thinking of her be removed by transporting 
the body ? It must be removed by the change in the soul, 
by bringing the mind to be above the power or reach of 
the allurement, and to an absolute mastership over the 
wicked desire ; otherwise the vicious desire remains as the 
force remains in the gunpowder, and will exert itself 
whenever touched with the fire. 

" All motions to good^ or evil are in the soul. Outward 
objects are but second causes ;^ and though it is true, 
separating the man from the object is the way to make 
any act impossible to be committed, yet where the guilt 
does not lie in the act only, but in the intention or desire 
to commit it, that separation is nothing at all, and effects 
nothing at all. There may be as much adultery committed 
in a monastery, where a woman never comes, as in any 

^ We here again have Bacon's distinctive use of the word " mo- 
tions." And from The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 222, we quote : " Then 
directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, Come, how do you do ? 
How stands it between God and your soul, now ? 

If/nor. I hope, well ; for I am always full of good motions, that 
come into mv mind to comfort me as I walk. 

C7(r. What good motious ? Pray, tell us." 

■^ These are Bacon's views, and as to second causes he says : 
" For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second 
causes ; and if they would have it otherwise believed, it is mere 
imposture, as it were in favor towards God ; and nothing else but 
to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie." (Phil. 
Works, vol. iii., p. 267.) 



THE STOllY OF MY LIFE. 355 

other place, and perhaps is so. The abstaining from evil, 
therefore, depends not only and wholly upon limiting or 
confining the man's actions, but upon the man's limiting 
and confining his desires ; seeing to desire to sin, is to 
siu ; and the fact which we would commit if we had op- 
portunity, is really committed, and must be answered for 
as such. What, then, is there of religion, I say, in forced 
retirements from the world, and vows of silence or soli- 
tude ? They are all nothing ; 'tis a retired soul tliat alone 
is fit for contemplation, and it is the conquest of our de- 
sires to sin that is the only human preservative against 
sin." ' 

Having claimed in earlier pages that one of Bacon's 
designs in the plays was to furnish patterns to the mind, 
we here quote him thus : " For Plato said elegantly 
(though it has now grown into a commonplace), ' that 
virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and 
affection ;' and it is the business of rhetoric to make pic- 
tures of virtue and goodness, so that they may be seen. 
For since they cannot be showed to the sense in corporeal 
shape, the next degree is to show them to the imagination 
in as lively representation as possible, by ornament of 
words. For the metiiod of the Stoics, who thought to 
thrust virtue upon men by concise and sharp maxims and 
conxilusions, which have little sympathy with the imagina- 
tion and will of man, has been justly ridiculed by Cicero. 

" Again, if tlie affections themselves were brought to" 
order, and pliant and obedient to reason, it is true there 
would be no great use of persuasions and insinuations to 
give access to the mind, but naked and simple proposi- 
tions and proofs would be enough. But the affections do 
on the contrary make such secessions and raise such 
mutinies and seditions (according to the saying. Video 
meliora 'prohoqiie, Deteriora seqtfor) that reason would 
become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasion did 
not win the imagination from the affections' part, and 
contract a confederacy between the reason and imagina- 
tion against them. For it must be observed that the affec- 
tions themselves carry over an appetite to apparent good, 
and have this in common witb reason ; but the difference 
is that affection holds principally the good which is pres- 

^ Bacon thought this conquest best obtained by working to the 
view what is in man. See pp. 31-39. 



356 TUB STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ent ; reason looks beyond and beholds likewise the future 
and sum of all. And therefore the present filling the 
imagination more, reason is commonly vanquished and 
overcome. But after eloquence and force of persuasion 
have made things future and remote appear as present, 
then upon the revolt of imagination to reason, reason pre- 
vails." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 450, See our quotation 
at p. 194, and read ch. 3 of Book 7 of the De Augmentis, 
and the range of purpose in the plays will appear. In this 
connection please see The Pilgrim's Progress as to Passion 
and Patience, pp. 97-100.) 

But we return to Crusoe, p. 11, where we have : 

" To pay every man his own is the common law of hon- 
esty, but to do good to all mankind, as far as you are 
able, is the chancery law of honesty ;^ and though, in 
common law or justice, as I call it, mankind can have no 
claim upon us, if we do but just pay our debts, yet in 
heaven's chancery they will have relief against us, for 
they have a demand in equity of all the good to be done 
them that it is in our power to do,^ and this chancery 
court, or court of equity, is held in every man's breast — 
'tis a true court of conscience, and every man's conscience 
is a lord chancellor to him ; if he has not performed, if he 
has not paid this debt, conscience will decree him to pay 
it, or the penalty of declaring him a dishonest man, even 
in his own opinion ; and if he still refuses to comply, will 
proceed by all the legal steps of a court of conscience 
process, till at last it will issue out a writ of rebellion 
against him, and proclaim him a rebel to nature and his 
own conscience." 

And on p. 13 we have : 

" This put me upon inquiring and debating with myself 
what this subtle and imperceptible thing called honesty is, 
and how it might be described, setting down my thoughts 
at several times, as objects presented, that posterity, if 
they think them worth while, may find them both useful 
and diverting." 

^ Bacon says : " For certainly the Court of Heaven (I take it) is as 
well a Clinnreiy to save and debar foifcitures, as a court of Com- 
mon Law to decide rights ; and there would be work enongh in 
Germany, lialy, and other parts, if imperial forfeitures should go 
for good titles." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 473.) See this use of 
the word chancellor at p. 56, note 1, 

^ Promus, 888. Proud when I can do men good. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 357 

After stating how he purposes to handle the subject, he 
continues : 

" If any man from his private ill- nature, takes excep- 
tions at me, poor, wild, wicked Kobinson Crusoe, for prat- 
ing of such subjects as this is, and shall call either my 
sins or misfortunes to remembrance, in prejudice of what 
he reads, supposing me thereby unqiialitied to defend so 
noble a subject as this of honesty, or, at least, to handle 
it honestly, I take the freedom to tell such, that those 
very wild v/icked doings and mistakes of mine render me 
the properest man alive^ to give warning to others, as the 
man that has been sick is half a physician. Besides, the 
confession which I all along make of my early errors, and 
which Providence, you see, found me leisure enough to 
repent of, and, I hope, gave me assistance to do it effec- 
tually, assists to qualify me for the present undertaking, 
as well to recommend that rectitude of soul which I call 
honesty to others, as to warn those who are subject to 
mistake it, either in themselves or others. Heaven itself 
receives those who sincerely repent into the same state of 

^ 111 the Taming of the Shrew, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 435, we have : 

" Bian. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive, 
I never yet beheld that special face 
Which I could fancy more than any other." 

In Twelfth Night, Act 1., sc. 5, p. 371, we have : 

" Lady, you are the crudest she alive, 
If you will lead these graces to the grave. 
And leave the world no copy." 

The word "alive" was often thus used by Bacon. And in Sub. 
352 of his Natural History he says: "No wood hath been yet 
tried to shine, that was cut down alive, but such as was rotten both 
in stock and root while it grew." In this subdivision he applies the 
word wood to men. In {he play of The Tempest it was " wood " 
that Caliban was bringing home. Piomus, 522. {Any man can 
gather tcood when the tree is doion.) Promus, 545. A Mercury can- 
not be made of every wood (but Priapus may). In Love's Laijour's 
Lost, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 425, we have : 

" Bir. Is ebony like her ? O wood divine ! 
A wife of such wood were felicity." 

And Bacon, in a letter to Lord Keeper Puckering in 1594, says : 
" But if your Lordship consider my nature, my course, my friends, 
my opinion with her Majesty (if this eclipse of her favor were past), 
I hope you will think I am no unlikely piece of wood to shape you 
a true servant of." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 293.) 



358 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

acceptance as if they had not sinned at all, and so should 
we also. 

" They who repent, and their ill lives amend, 
Stand next to those who never did offend, 

" Nor do I think a man onght to be afraid or ashamed 
to own and acknowledge his follies and mistakes, but 
rather to think it a debt which honesty obliges him to 
pay ; besides, our infirmities and errors, to which all men 
are equally subject, when recovered from, leave such im- 
pressions behind them on those who sincerely repent of 
them, that they are always the forward est to accuse and 
reproach themselves. No man need advise them or lead 
them ; and this gives the greatest discovery of the honesty of 
tlie man's heart, and sincerity of principles. Some people 
tell us they think they need not make an open acknowl- 
edgment of their follies, and 'tis a cruelty to exact it of 
them — that they could rather die than submit to it — that 
their spirits are too great for it — that they are more afraid 
to come to such public confessions and recognitions than 
they would be to meet a cannon bullet, or to face an 
enemy. Bat this is a poor mistaken piece of false bravery ; 
all shame is cowardice, as an eminent poet tells us, that 
all courage is fear, the bravest spirit is the best qualified 
for a penitent." 

And on p. 15 we have : 

" Honesty is a little tender^ plant, not known to all who 
have skill in simples,^ thick sowed, as they say, and- thin 
come up ; 'tis nice of growth, it seldom thrives in a very 
fat" soil, and yet a very poor ground, too, is apt to starve 

' Promus, 392. (The stuff of which honor is made is rather ten- 
der.) 

^ " The best simples for the stomach are rosemary, elecampane, 
mastich, wormwood, sage, and mint." (Bacon's Natural History, 
Sub. 10.) In Addison, vol. iv., p. 825, we have: "He was ac- 
quaiuted with all the powers of simples, understood all the influ- 
ences of the stars, knew the secrets that were engraved on the seal 
of Solomon the son of David." In Hamlet, Act iv., sc. 7, p. 343 : 

" Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, 
Collected from all simples that have virtue 
Under the moon, can save the thing from death," etc. 

This is the Baconian word throughout. 

3 In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 327, we have : " But we will come 
again to this Valley of Humiliation. It is the best and most fruitful 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 359 

it, unless it has taken very good toot ; when it once takes 
to a piece of ground it will never be quite destroyed ; it 
may be choked with the weeds of prosperity, and some- 
times 'tis so scorched up with the droughts of poverty and 
necessity, that it seems as if it were quite dead and gone ; 
but it always revives upon the least mild weather, and if 
some showers of plenty fall, it makes full reparation for 
the loss the gardener had in his crop. 

*' There is an ugly weed, called cunning,^ which is very 
pernicious to it, and which particularly injures it, by 
hiding it from our discovery, and making it hard to find. 
This is so like honesty, that many a man has been deceived 
with it, and has taken one for t'other in the market ; 
nay, I have heard of some who have planted this wikr 
honesty, as we may call it, in their own ground, have 
made use of it in their friendships and dealings, and 
thought it had been the true plant, but they always lost 
credit by it. And that was not the worst neither, for 
they had the loss who dealt with them,^ and who chaffered 
for a counterfeit commodity ; and we find many deceived 
so still, which is the occasion there is such an outcry 
about false friends, and about sharping and tricking in 
men's ordinary dealings in the world." 

And on pp. 16 and 1? we have : 

" I am of the opinion that i could state a circumstance 
in which there is not one man in the world would be hon- 
est. Necessity is above the power of human nature, and 
for Providence to suffer a man to fall into that necessity 

piece of ground in all these parts. It is fat ground, and, as you see, 
consisteth much in meadows ; and if a man was to come here in the 
summer-time, as we do now, if he knew not anything before thereof, 
and if he also delighted himself in the sight of his eyes, he might 
see that which would be delightful to him." Bacon in his Natural 
History speaks of " fat ground." He also says the cabbage has " a 
fat leaf. ' ' 

^ See Bacon's Essay entitled " Of Cunning." 

^ We not only find Bacon using the foregoing expression thick 
" sowed," but also this use of the word " wild," and his Essay en- 
titled " Of Revenge" opens thus : " Rev(!nge is a kind of wild jus- 
tice ; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to 
weed it out." And in Addison, vol. iii., p. 130, we have the expres- 
sion "wild logic," and on p. 192 "the metaphors are not thick- 
sown." 

2 He here alludes to those that had dealt unjustly bj' him, as later 
we shall see. 



360 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

is to suffer him to sin, because nature is not furnished 
with power to defend itself, nor is grace itself able to 
fortify the mind against it. 

" What shall we say to five men in a boat at sea, with- 
out provision, calling a council together, and resolving to 
kill one of themselves for the others to feed on, and eat 
him ? With what face could the four look up and crave 
a blessing on that meat? With what heart give thanks 
after it? And yet this has been done by honest men, and 
I believe the most honest man in the world might be 
forced to it ; yet here is no manner of pretence but neces- 
sity, to palliate the crime. If it be argued it was the loss 
of one man to save the four, it is answered, but what 
authority to make him die to save their lives? How came 
the man to owe them such a debt ? It was robbery and 
murder ; it was robbing him of this life, which was his 
property, to preserve mine ; it is murder, by taking away 
the life of an innocent man ; and at best it was doing 
evil tnat good may come, which is expressly forbidden." 

Again : 

" That we may see now whether this man's honesty lies 
any deeper than his neighbor's, turn the scales of his 
fortune a little. His father left him a good estate ; but 
here come some relations, and they trump up a title to his 
lands, and serve ejectments upon his tenants, and so the 
man gets into trouble, hurry of business, and the law ; the 
extravagant charges of the law sink him of all his ready 
money, and, his rents being stopped, the first breach he 
makes upon his honesty (that is, by his former rules), he 
goes to a friend to borrow money, tells him this matter 
will be over, he hopes, quickly, and he shall have his rents 
to receive, and then he will pay him again ; and really he 
intends to do so, but here comes a disappointment ; the 
trial comes on. and he is cast,' and his title to the estate 

^ As to this use of the word " cast," Bacon in a letter to Bucking- 
ham, January 23d, 1623, says : " I am akiiost at last cast for means, 
and yet it grieveth me most, that at such a time as this I should not 
be rather serviceable to your Grace than troublesome." (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vii,, p. 452.) He also says: "Lastly, I did cast with 
myself, that if your Lordship's deputies had come iu bj'- Sir Edward 
Coke who was tied to Somerset," etc. (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., 
p. 117 ) And in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 125, we have : " Then 
did Christian begin to be afraid, and cast in his mind whether to go 
back or to stand his ground." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 361 

proves defective ; his father was cheated, and he not only 
loses the estate, but is called upon for the arrears of the 
rent he has received ; and, in short, the man is undone,' 
and has not a penny to buy bread or to help himself, and, 
besides this, cannot pay the money he borrowed." 

And on p. 18 we have : 

'* But when we are considering human nature subjected, 
by the consequences of Adam's transgression, to frailty 
and infirmity, and regarding things from man to man, 
the exigencies and extremities of straitened circumstances 
seem to me to be most prevailing arguments why the 
denomination of a man's general character ought not by 
his fellow-mortals (subject to the same infirmities) to be 
gathered from his mistakes, his errors, or failings ; no, 
not from his being guilty of any extraordinary sin, but 
from the manner and method of his behavior. Does he 
go on to commit frauds, and make a practice of his sin : 
Is it a distress ? Is it a storm of affliction and poverty has 
driven him upon the lee-shore of temptation ?^ Or is the 
sin the port he steered for ? A ship may by stress of 
weather be driven upon sands and dangerous places, and 
the skill of the pilot not be blamable ; but he that runs 
against the wind, and without any necessity, upon a 
shelve which he sees before him, must do it on purpose to 
destroy the vessel, and ruin the voyage. 

" In short, if no man can be called honest but he who 
is never overcome to fall into any breach of this rectitude 
of life, none but he who is sutficiently fortified against all 
possibility of being tempted by prospects, or driven by 
distress, to make any trespass upon his integrity ; woe be 
unto me that write, and to most that read ! where shall 
we find the honest man ?" 

And on p. 22 we have : 

" There are men, indeed, who will be exceeding punc- 
tual to their words and promises, who yet cannot be called 
honest men, because they have other vices and excursions' 

^ To Bacon's Promus Note touching this word "undone" we 
have already called attention. See p. 93, note 2. 

* Already have we given intimation of an undisclosed financial 
element connected with Bacon's overthrow. This we purpose later 
to call under review in connection with a secret scheme for revenue 
mentioned in earlier pages. 

3 This use of the word "excursion" is distinctly Baconian, and 
used not merely in his philosophy, but generally throughout these 



362 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

that render them otherwise wicked. These give their 
testimony to the beauty of honesty, by choosing it as the 
best mark to put a gloss upon their actions and conceal 
the other deformities of their lives ; and so honesty, like 
religion, is made use of to disguise the hypocrite and raise 
a reputation upon the shadow, by the advantage it takes 
of the real esteem the world has of the substance. I say 
of this counterfeit honesty, as I said of religion in like 
cases. If honesty was not the most excellent attainment, 
it would not be made use of as the most specious pretence ; 
nor is there a more exquisite way for a man to play the 
hypocrite than to pretend an extraordinary zeal to the 
performance of his promises ; because, when the opinion 
of a man's honesty that way has spread in the thoughts of 
men, there is nothing so great but they will trust him 
with, nor is hard but they will do it for him. 

*' All men reverence an honest man : the knaves stand 
in awe of him, fools adore him and wise men love him ; 
and thus is virtue its OAvn reward.' 

*' Honest men are in more danger from this one hypo- 
crite than from twenty open knaves f for these have a 
mark placed upon them by their general character, as a 
buoy upon a rock to warn strangers from venturing upon 
it. But the hypocrites are like a pit covered over, like 
shoals under water, and danger concealed which cannot be 
seen. I must confess I have found these the most dan- 
gerous, and have too deeply suffered by throwing myself 

writings. He says : " As nature, therefore, governs all things by 
means (1) of her general course ; (2) her excursion ; and (3) by means 
of human assistance ; these three parts must be received into natural 
history as in some measure they are by Pliny." (De Augmentis, 
Bolm ed., p. 80, and see pp. 131, 142, and 229.) In Addison, vol. 
iv., p. 81, we have : "As a monosyllable is my delight, I have 
made few excursions, in the conversations which I have related, 
beyond a yes or a no." Observe Bacon's expression "gloss upon 
their actions," and " deformity of their lives." He also says : " I 
do not love to set the gloss before the text." (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
v., p. 220.) He says : " In the mean time it is proper to read the 
disagreeing philosophies, as so many glosses of nature." (De 
Augmentis, ch. 3, Book 4, Bohn ed., p. 137.) 

' This thought is distinctly Baconian, and nearly in Bacon's own 
words in another place. 

2 This word " knave" was Bacon's word for this place, and it is 
spread everywhere, not only in the plays, but generally in this liter- 
ature. Promus, 83o«. (^4 practical knave.) 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 363 

on their protestations of honesty.' The esteem I always 
entertained of the most beautiful gift God has bestowed, 
or man could receive, has made me the easier to be de- 
ceived with the resemblance of it. 

*' So much as I, or any one else, by the viciousness of 
onr own nature, or the prevailing force of accidents, 
snares, and temptations, have deviated from this shining 
principle, so far as we have been foolish as well as wicked, 
so much we have to repent of towards our Maker, and be 
ashamed of towards our neighbor. 

*' For my part, 1 am never backward to own, let who 
will be the reader of these sheets, that to the dishonor of 
my Maker, and the just scandal of my own honesty, I 
have not paid that due regard to the rectitude of this 
principle which my own kaowledge has owned to. be its 
due ; let those who have been juster to themselves, and to 
the giver of it, rejoice in the happiness, rather than 
triumph over the inhrmity. 

*' But let them be sure they have been juster on their 
own parts ; let them be positive that their own integrity 
is untainted, and would abide all the trials and racks that 
a ruined fortune, strong temptations, and deep distresses, 
could bring it into ; let them not boast till these dangers 
are past, and they put their armour off ; and if they can 
do it, then I will freely acknowledge they have less need 
of repentance than I. 

" Not that I pretend, as I noted before, and shall often 
repeat, that these circumstances render my failing, or any 
man's else, the less a sin, but they make the reason why 
we that have fallen should rather be pitied^than reproached 
by those who think they stand, because, when the same 
assaults are made upon the chastity of their honor, it may 
be every jot as likely to be prostrated as their neighbor's. 

" And such is the folly of scandal, as well as the blind- 
ness of malice, that it seldom fixes reproach upon the 
right foot. I have seen so much of it, with respect to 
other people, as well as to myself, that it gives me a very 

^ The methods of both king and Buckingham with Bacon have 
already been called under review, and found as well without as 
within the sonnets. Promus, 1083. (Trust [confidence] nowhere 
safe.) Did space permit, many points which we leave untouched 
might be made concerning these Serious Relleclions. 

'^ See Sonnet 114. 



364 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

scoundrel opinion of all those people whom I find forward 
to load their neighbors with reproach. Nothing is more 
frequent in this case than to run away with a piece of a 
man's character, in which they err, and do him wrong 
and leave that part of him untouched which is really 
black, and would bear it ; this makes me sometimes, when 
with the humblest and most abasing thoughts of myself, 
I look up, and betwixt God and my own soul, cry out, 
* What a wretch am 1 ! ' at the same time smile at the 
hair-brained enemy, whose tongue tipped with malice, runs 
ahead of his understanding, and missing the crimes for 
which I deserve more than he can afflict, reproaches me 
with those I never committed. Methinks I am ready to 
call him back, like the huntsman, when the dogs run upon 
the foil, and say, ' Hold, hold, you are wrong ; take him 
here, and you have him.' 

" I question not but 'tis the same with other peo2)le ; 
for when malice is in the heart, reproach generally goes a 
mile before consideration, and where is the honesty of the 
man all this while? This is trampling upon my pride, 
sed majori fastu, but with greater pride ; 'tis exposing 
my dishonesty, but with the greatest knavery ; 'tis a 
method no honest man will take, and when taken, no 
honest man regards ;' wherefore, let none of these sons of 
slander take satisfaction in the frequent acknowledgments 
I am always ready to make of my own failing, for that 
humility with which I always find cause to look into my 
own heart, where I see others worse, and more guilty of 
crimes than they can lay to my charge, yet makes me look 
back upon their weakness with the last contempt, who fix 
their important charges where there is no room to take 
hold, and run away with the air and shadow of crimes 
never committed." 

We will here pass chapter 3, which is devoted to the sub- 
ject of the reformation of manners,^ and give place to 

^ Later, in the newly discovered writings of Defoe, we may find 
short, terse articles upon these points. We shall likewise find how 
likely he was to have been author of the works attributed to him. 

- Let it be borne in mind that these Serious Reflections were the 
line or thread along and upon which was woven a considerable portion 
of the Defoe literature. Bacon says.": "But knowledge that is de- 
livered to others as a thread to be spun on ought to be insinuated 
(if it were possible), in the same method wherein it was originally 
invented." (De Augmentis, ch. 2, Book 6.) 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 365 

some thoughts from chapter 4, which is devoted to the 
subject of the then state of religion in the world, and 
which bears directly upon Bacon's aims presented in 1622, 
touching a holy war against the Turks. Near the open- 
ing of the chapter, and from p. 36, we quote as follows : 

'* You may now suppose me to be arrived, after a long 
course of infinite variety on the stage of the world, to the 
scene of life we call old age, and that I am writing these 
sheets in a season of my time when (if ever) a man may 
be supposed capable of making just reflections upon things 
past, a true judgment of things present, and tolerable con- 
clusions of things to come. 

" In the beginning of this life of composure (for now, 
and not till now, I may say, that I began to live, that is 
to say, a sedate and composed life), I inquired of myself 
very seriously one day what was the proper business of 
old age. The answer was very natural, and indeed re- 
turned very quick upon me, namely, that two things were 
my present work, as above : 

" 1. Reflection upon things past. 

"2. Serious application to things future. 

" Having resolved the business of life into these heads, 
I began immediately with the first ; and, as sometimes 
I took my pen and ink to disburden my thoughts when 
the subject crowded in fast upon me, so I have here com- 
municated some of my observations for the benefit of 
those that come after me." 

Here follows a dialogue wherein a new idea seems to 
have sprung up in Crusoe's mind on having the subject 
of supplication contrasted with that of adoration, and 
which may, we think, have given origin to The Pilgrim's 
Progress. The dialogue concluded, Crusoe continues 
thus : 

" I thought this serious old lady would have entertained 
a further discourse with me on so fruitful a subject, but 
she declined it, and left me to my own meditation, which, 
indeed, she had raised to an unusual pitch ; and the first 
thing that occurred to me, was to put' me upon inquiring 
.after that nice thing I ought to call religion in the world, 
seeing really I found reason to think that there was much 

' This use of the word " pat" was not uncommon with Bacon, 
and a little later, in our quotation from the New Atlantis, we shall 
find him using the expression " which did put us into some hope." 



300 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

more devotion than religion in the world ; in a word, 
much more adoration than supplication ; and I doubt, as 
I come nearer home, it will appear that there is much 
more hypocrisy than sincerity, — of which I may speak by 
itself. » ' 

*' In my first inquiries, I looked back upon my own 
travels, and it afforded me but a melancholy reflection, 
that in all the voyages and travels which I have employed 
two volumes in giving a relation of, 1 never set my foot in 
a Christian country, — no, not in circling three parts of 
the globe ; for excepting the Brazils, where the Portuguese 
indeed profess the Eoman Catholic principles, which, 
however, in distinction from paganism, I will call the 
Christian religion, — I say, except the Brazils, where also 
I made little stay, I could not be said to set foot in a 
Christian country, or a country inhabited by Christians, 
from the Bay of La'rache, and the port of Sallee, by the 
Strait's mouth, where I escaped from slavery, through the 
Atlantic Ocean, the coasts of Africa on one side, and of 
Caribbea on the American shore, on the other side ; from 
thence to Madagascar, Malabar, and the bay and city of 
Bengali, the coast of Sumatra, Malacca, Si am, Cambodia, 
Cochin China, the empire and coast of China, the deserts 
of Karakathay, the Mogul Tartars, the Siberian, the Sam- 
oiede barbarians, and till 1 came within four or five days 
of Archangel in the Black Eussia.'^ 

*' It is, I say, a melancholy reflection to think how all 

^ This is done further on in the chapter, under the head of Negative 
Religion and Negative Virtue. He saj^s : "Negative virtue sets out 
hke the Pharisee with God, I thank thee ; it is a piece of religious 
pageantry, a jointed baby dressed up gay, but, stripped of its gew- 
gaws, it appears a naked lump fit only to please children and deceive 
fools. It is the hope of the hypocrite, it is a cheat upon the neigh- 
borhood, a dress for without doors, for it is of no use within ; it is 
a mask put on for a character, and as generally it is used to cheat 
others, it is so ignorantly embraced that we cheat even ourselves 
with it." Let the expression " jointed baby" be particularly noted 
for future reference. And in this connection read in The Pilgrim's 
Prog-ress the dialogue between Faithful and Talkative, pp. 146-58. 
In his preface to the De Augmeutis Bacon says : "And as to the 
point of usefulness, the philosophy we principally received from the 
Greeks must be acknowledged puerile, or rather talkative than 
generative— as being fruitful in controversies, but barren in effects." 
Bacon in many places thus makes use of this word " talkative." 

'^ Were not these voyages framed in part to show^ this then state 
of tlie Christian world V 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 367 

these parts of the world, and with infinite numbers of 
millions of people, furnished with the powers of reason 
and gifts of nature, and many ways, if not every wa}^, as 
capable of the reception of sublime things as we are, are 
yet abandoned to the grossest ignorance and depravity ; 
and that not in religion only, but even in all the desirable 
parts^ of human knowledge, and especially science and 
acquired knowledge." 

And on p. 39 we have : 

" Nay, further, I must observe also, that as the Chris- 
tian religion has worn out, or been removed from any 
country, and they have returned to heathenism and idol- 
atry, so the barbarisms have returned, the customs of the 
heathen nations have been again restored, the very nature 
and temper of the people have been again lost, all their 
generous principles have forsaken them, the softness and 
goodness of their dispositions have worn out, and they 
have returned to cruelty, inhumanity, rapine, and blood." 

And again, same page : 

'' Nor will it be denied if I should carry this yet further, 
and observe, that even among Christians, those who are 
reformed, and further and further Christianized, are still 
in proportion rendered more human, more soft and ten- 
der ; and we do^ find, without being partial to ourselves, 
that even the Protestant countries are much distinguished 
in the humanity and softness of their tempers ; the meek, 
merciful disposition extends more among Protestants than 
among the Papists, as I could very particularly demon- 
strate from history and experience. 

" But to return back to the Moors, where I left off \^ — 
they are an instance of that cruelty of disposition which 

' To Bacon's use of this word " part" we have already called atten- 
tion. 

■^ To a kind of distinctive use of the word " do" by Bacon, and 
seemingly for emphasis, we have already called attention. It will 
be fonnd everywhere in the plays. See"^ p. 26. In Ciesar, Act i., 
so. 2, p. 836, we have : 

" Gas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
As well as I do know your outward favor." 

Nor should we lose sight of the fact that one hundred years inter- 
venes between the literary period of Bacon and that of Defoe. 

^ Did space permit, tlie play of Othello, the Moor of Venice, might 
be here properly called into relation. 



368 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

was anciently in tlieir nature, and now in a country aban- 
doned of the true Christian religion, after it has been first 
planted and professed among them, the return of heathen- 
ism or Mahomedanism has brought back with it all the 
barbarisms of a nation void of religion and good nature. 

" I saw enough of these dreadful people to think them 
at this time the worst of all the nations of the world ; a 
nation where no such thing as a generous spirit, or a tem- 
per with any compassion mixed with it, is to be found ; 
among whom nature appears stripped of all the additional 
glories which it derives from religion, and yet whereon a 
Christian flourishing church had stood several hundred 
years. ' ' 

And on p. 40 we have : 

"China is famous for wisdom, that is to say, that the}^ 
having such a boundless conceit of their own wisdom, we 
are obliged to allow them more than they have ; the truth 
is, they are justly said to be a wise nation among the fool- 
ish ones, and may as justly be called a nation of fools 
among the wise ones. 

" As to their religion, it is all summed up in Confucius' s 
Maxims, whose theology I take to be a rhapsody of moral 
conclusions ; a foundation, or what we may call elements 
of polity, morality, and superstition, huddled together in 
a rha2:)Sody of words,^ without consistency, and, indeed, 
with very little reasoning in it ; then it is really not so 
much as a refined paganism, for there are, in my opinion, 
much more regular doings among some of the Indians that 
are pagans, in America, than there are in China ; and if 
I may believe the account given of the government of 
Montezuma in Mexico, and of the Uncas of Cusco in Peru, 
their worship and religion, such as it was, was carried on 
with more regularity than those in China.' As to the 
human ingenuity, as they call it, of the Chinese, 1 shall 

' " Rliapsody of words" is a Baconian expression. 

2 In the play of The Tempest it may be seen that Cetebos, a god 
worshipped in some of these localities, was the god of Sycorax, who 
was from Algiers. See Hudson's note to the play upon this point. 
In his Essay entitled " Of Atheism," Bacon says : " The Indians of 
the west have names for their particular gods, though they have no 
name for God ; as if the heathens should have had the name of 
Jupiter. Apollo, Mars, etc.. but not the word Dens ; which shows 
that even those barbarous people have the notion, though^^they have 
not the latitude and extent of it." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 3G0 

account for it by itself. The utmost discoveries of it to 
me api:)eared in the mechanics, and even in them inlinitely 
short of what is found among the European nations. 

" But let us take these people to pieces a little, and. 
examine into the great pretension they are so famed for ; 
first of all, their knowledge has not led them that length' 
in religious matters which the common notions of philoso- 
phy would have done, and to which they did lead the wise 
heathens of old among the Grecian and Roman empires ; 
for they, having not the knowledge of the true God, pre- 
served notwithstanding, the notion of a God to be some- 
thing immortal, omnipotent, sublime ; exalted above in 
place as well as authority, and therefore made heaven to 
be the seat of their gods, and the images by which they 
represented their gods and goddesses had always some per- 
fections that were really to be admired as the attendants 
of their gods, as Jupiter was called the Thunderer for his 
power ; father of gods and men, for his seniority ; Venus, 
adored for her beauty ; Mercury for swiftness ; Apollo 
for wit, poetry, music ; Mars for terror and gallantry in 
arms, and the like. But when we come to these polite 
nations of China, which yet we cry up for sense and great- 
ness of genius, we see them grovelling in the very sink 
and filth of idolatry ; their idols are the most frightful 
monstrous shapes, not the form of any real creature, 
much less the images of virtue, of chastity, of literature, but 
horrid shapes, of their priests' invention ; neither hellish 
nor human monsters, composed of invented forms, with 
neither face nor figure, but with the utmost distortions, 
formed neither to walk, stand, fly, or go, neither to hear, 
see, or speak, but merely to instil horrible ideas of some- 
thing nauseous and abominable into the minds of men 
that adored them. 

" If I may be allowed to give my notions of worship, 
I mean as it relates to the objects of natural homage, 
where the name and nature of God is not revealed, as in 
the Christian religion, I must acknowledge the sun, the 
moon, the stars, the elements, as in the pagan and heathen 
nations of old ; and above all these, the representations of 
superior virtues and excellences among men, such as valor, 
fortitude, chastity, patience, beauty, strength, love, learn- 

^ " Led them that leugth" is a Baconian expression. 



370 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ing, wisdom, and the like ; the objects of worship in the 
Grecian and Eoman times' were far more eligible and 
more rational objects of divine rites than the idols of 
China and Japan,^ where, with all the economy of their 
state maxims and rules of civil government, which we in- 
sist so much on as tests of their wisdom, their grand 
capacities and understandings, their worsliip is the most 
brutish, and the objects of their worship, the coarsest, the 
most unmanly, inconsistent with reason or the nature of 
religion of any the world can show ; bowing down to a 
mere hobgoblin, and doing their reverence not to the work 
of man's hands only, by the ugliest, basest, frightfullest 
things that man could make ; images so far from being 
lovely and amiable, as in the nature of worship is implied, 
that they are the most detestable and nauseous, even to 
nature." 

And on p. 41 we have : 

" But let me come to their mechanics, in which their 
ingenuity is so much cried up ; I affirm there is little or 
nothing sufficient to build the mighty opinion we have of 
them upon but what is founded upon the comparisons 
which we make between them and other pagan nations, 
or proceeds from the wonder which we make that they 
should have any knowledge of mechanic arts, because we 
find the remote inhabitants of Africa and America so 
grossly ignorant and so entirely destitute in such things ; 
whereas we do not consider that the Chinese inhabit the 
continent of Asia, and though they are separated by deserts 
and wildernesses, yet they are a continuous continent of 
land with the parts of the world once inhabited by the 
politer Medes, Persians, and Grecians ; that the first ideas 
of mechanic arts were probably received from them from 
the Persians, Assyrians, and the banished transplanted 
Israelites, who are said to be carried into the regions of 
Parthia and the borders of Karacathay, from whence they 
are also said to have communicated arts, and especially 
handicraft in which the Israelites excelled, to the inhabi- 
tants of all those countries, and, consequently, in time to 
those beyond them." 

We shall later call the foregoing thoughts somewhat 

* See the many Addison articles upon these points. 
"^ Bacon's voyage of the New Athmtis opens, let it be remembered, 
with its vessel headed for Cliiua and .Japan. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 371 

into relation with Bacon's New Atlantis. As seen in our 
Introduction, chapter 5 of these Serious Reflections is 
devoted to the subject of the Divine Providence ; while 
chapter 6, to which we next turn, is devoted to a compari- 
son between the Christian and pagan world. ^ Bacon's 
desire to see a union of all Christian princes to wipe out 
paganism has already been alluded to in connection with 
his fragment touching a holy war against the Turks. In 
connection with this thought, we from chapter 6, p. 68, 
quote as follows : 

" But this is all a digression ; I come to my calculation. 
It is true that the Spaniards, whom I allow to be Chris- 
tians, have possessed the empires of Mexico and Peru ; but 
after all the havoc they made, and the millions of souls 
they dismissed out of life there, yet the natives are in- 
finitely the majority of the inhabitants ; and though 
many of them are Christianized, they are little more than 
subjected ; and take all the Spaniards, Christians, and all 
of the Portuguese in the Brazils, all the English and 
French in the North, and in a word, all the Christians in 
America, and put them together, they will not balance 
one part of the pagans or Mahomedans in Europe ; for 
example, take the Crim Tartars of Europe, who inhabit 
tlie banks of the Euxine Sea,-* they are more in number 
than all the Christians in America ; so that setting one 
nation against the other, and you may reckon that there is 
not one Christian, or as if there were not one Christian, 
in those three parts of the world, Asia, Africa, and 
America, except the Greeks of Asia. 

" This is a just but a very sad account of the extent of 
Christian knowledge in the world ; and were it considered 
as it ought, would put the most powerful princes of Europe 
upon thinking of some methods, at least, to open a way 
for the spreading of Christian knowledge. I am not much 
of the opinion, indeed, that religion should be planted by 
the sword ; but as the Christian princes of Europe, how- 
ever few in number, are yet so superior to all the rest of 
the world in martial experience and the art of war, nothing 

^ This chapter shoukl be read in connection with the different 
subdivisions of the last chapter of the Anatomy of Melancholy, and 
we will be made to realize that they are by one and the same author. 

- See Euxine Sea mentioned in our quotation from the Anatomy 
of Melancholy, p. 21. 



372 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

is more certain than that, if they would unite their inter- 
est, they are able to beat paganism out of the world. 
Nothing is more certain than this, that would the Chris- 
tian princes unite their powers and act in concert, they 
might destroy the Turkish Empire and the Persian King- 
dom, and beat the very name of Mahomet out of the 
world.' 

" It is no boast to say, that, were there no intestine broils 
among us, the Christian soldiery is so evidently superior 
to the Turkish at this time, that had they all joined after 
the late battle at Belgrade to have sent 80,000 veteran 
soldiers to have joined Prince Eugene,'' and supplied him 
with money and provisions by the ports of the Adriatic 
Gulf and the Archipelago, that prince would in two or 
three campaigns have driven the Mahomedans out of 
Europe, taken Constantinople, and have overturned the 
Turkish Empire. 

" After such a conquest, whither might not the Chris- 
tian religion have spread "^ The King of Spain with the 
same ease would reduce the Moors of Barbary, and dis- 
possess those sons of hell, the Algerines, Tripolines, Tuni- 
zens, and all the Mahomed an pirates of that coast, and 
plant again the ancient churches of Africa^ — the sees of 
Tertullian, St. Cyprian, etc. 

" Nay, even the Czar of Muscovy, an enterprising and 
glorious prince, well assisted and supported by his neigh- 
bors, the northern powers, who together are masters of 
the best soldiery in the world, would not find it impossible 
to march an army of 36,000 foot and 16,000 horse, in 
spite of waste and inhospitable deserts, even to attack the 
Chinese Empire, who, notwithstanding their infinite num- 

^ This is distinctly what Bacon sought, as may be seen in his frag- 
ment entitled "An Advertisement Touching a Holy War." And 
please see, at p. 250, wliat he would have had inserted in the marriage 
treaty of Prince Charles. And was not this that to which he alludes 
as principle in his intention in his already C[uoted prayer at p. 279 ? 

2 There are but few interpolations in this work, and they exist only 
where necessary to conform it to the times. Here is, we think, one 
of them. The statement as to Prince Eugene is doubtless a substi- 
tute for what was originally written, and which may have concerned 
the Prince Palatine, Frederick the Fifth, who, as we have seen, 
became in 1615 the head of the Protestant union of German princes. 

3 It will be remembered that in the play of The Tempest the king's 
daughter is said to have been wedded to an African. See also the 
allusion as to Tunis and Algiers. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 373 

.bers, pretended policy, and great skill in war, wonld sink 
in the oj^eration ; and such an army of disciplined Euro- 
pean soldiers would beat all the forces of that vast empii-e 
with the same or greater ease as Alexander with 30,000 
Macedonians destroyed the army of Darius, which con- 
sisted of 680,000 men." 

And on p. 69 we have : 

'' Why, then, should not the Christian princes think it 
a deed of compassion to the souls of men, as well as an 
humble agency to the work of Providence, and to the ful- 
filling the promises of their Saviour, by a moderate and 
as far as in them lies, a bloodless conquest, to reduce the 
whole world to the government of Christian power, and 
so plant the name and knowledge of Christ Jesus among 
the heathens and Mahomedans ? I am not supposing 
that they can plant real religion in this manner ; the 
business of power is to open the way to the Gospel of 
peace ; the servants of the king of the earth are to fight, 
that the servants of the King of heaven may preach.^ 

" Let but an open door be made for the preaching of 
the Word of God, and the ministers of Christ be admitted, 
if they do not spread Christian knowledge over the face 
of the earth the fault will be theirs. Let but the military 
power reduce the pagan world, and banish the devil and 
Mahomet from the face of the earth, the knowledge of 
God be diligently spread, the Word of God duly preached, 
and the people meekly and faithfully instructed in the 
Christian religion, the world would soon receive the truth, 
and the knowledge of divine things would be the study 
and delight of mankind." 

And same page we have : 

" I distinguish between forcing religion upon people, 
or forcing them to entertain this or that opinion of re- 

^ And the king in the play of Henry V., Act v., sc. 2. p. 583, is 
made to say : " Shall not thou and I, between St. Dennis and St. 
George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to 
Constantinople, and take the Turk by the beard ? shall we not ? 
what say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce ?" The use of " high non- 
sense" in the plays and elsewhere in this literature in the attainment 
of ends will be later touched upon. As to the tiower-de-luce, see p. 
61. Bacon reports one as saying that " the flower-de-luces of France 
cannot descend neither to distaff nor spade : that is, not to a woman 
nor to a peasant." (Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 151.) He also 
mentions it in his Natural History and again in connection with 
beautifying of his grounds. As to the play of Henry V., see p. 341. 



374 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ligioii — I say, I distinguish between that and opening the 
door for religion to come among them. The former is a 
violence, indeed, inconsistent with the nature of religion 
itself, whose energy prevails and forces its way into the 
minds of men by another sort of power ; whereas the latter 
is removing a force unjustly put already upon the minds 
of men, by the artifice of the devil, to keep the Christian 
religion out of the world ;' so that, indeed, I propose a 
war not with men, but with the devil — a war to depose 
Satan's infernal tyranny in the world and set open the 
doors to religion, that it may enter if men will receive it ; 
if they will not receive it, be that to themselves. 

" In a word, to unchain the wills of men, set their in- 
clinations free, that their reason may be at liberty to in- 
fluence their understandings, and that they may have the 
faith of Christ preached to them, whether they will hear 
or forbear, I say, as above, is no part of the question ; let 
the Christian doctrine and its spiritual enemies alone to 
struggle about that. I am for dealing with the temporal- 
ities of the devil,^ and deposing that human power which 
is armed in the behalf of the obstinate ignorance, and 
resolute to keep out the light of religion from the mind.=* 

" 1 think this is a laAvful and just war, and, in the end, 
kind both to them and their posterity : let me bring the 
case home to ourselves. 

*' Suppose neither Julius Caesar nor any of the Roman 

' In the Defoe " History of the Devil" this is the ruling idea as to 
the devil's work. 

'^ See in this connection Defoe's History of the Devil. Bohn ed., 
beginning at p. 288. Here we find the " Diabolus" of Banyan's 
Holy War mentioned. As to the castle of the soul and its defeuce 
by the faculties of the mind as a garrison, see pp. 443. 548, and 508. 
Bacon's Promus, 1137. The eye is the gate of the affection, but the 
ear of the understanding. And in the Bunyan work we have : 
" The names of the Gates were these, Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth- 
gate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate." In the plays we have " the gates 
of love," " the gates and alleys of the body," etc. In All's Well 
that Ends Well, Act iv., sc. 5, p. 367, we have: "I am for the 
house with the narrow gate, which I take too little for pomp to 
enter : some that humble themselves may ; but many will be too 
chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way, that leads to 
the broad gate and the great fire." As to the word " gates, " see 
Addison, vol. ii., p. 133, and vol. iii., p. 233, and The Pilgrim's 
Progress, pp. 77 and 82. 

^ See pp. 22 and 23 the ends sought to be attained by means of the 
New Atlantis. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 375 

generals or emiierors had cast their eyes toward Britain 
for some ages, or till the Christian religion had spread 
over the whole Eoman empire, — 'tis true the Britons 
might at last have received the Christian faith in common 
with the rest of the northern world, but they had yet lain 
above three hundred years longer in ignorance and pagan- 
ism than they did ; and some hundred thousands of people 
who proved zealous Christians, nay, even martyrs for the 
Christian doctrine, would have died in the professed 
paganism of the Britons. 

" Now 'tis evident the invasion of the Romans was an 
unjust, bloody, tyrannical assault upon the poor Britons, 
against all right and property, against justice and neigh- 
borhood, and merely carried on for conquest and domin- 
ion. Nor indeed had the Romans any just j^retence of 
war ; yet God was pleased to make this violence be' the 
kindest thing that could have befallen the British nation, 
since it brought in the knowledge of God among the 
Britons, and was the means of reducing a heathen and 
barbarous nation to the faith of Christ, and to embrace 
the Messias. 

" Thus heaven serves itself of men's worst designs, and 
the avarice, ambition, and rage of men have been made use 
of to bring to pass the glorious ends of Providence, without 
the least knowledge or design of the actors. AVhy, then, 
may not the great undertakings of the princes of Europe, if 
they could be brought to act in concert, with a good design 
to bring all the world to open their doors to the Christian 
religion, and by consequence their ears, — I say, why may 
not such an attempt be blessed from heaven with so much 
success, at least as to make way for bringing in nominal 
Christianity among the nations ? For as to obliging the 
people to be of this or that opinion afterward, that_ is 
another case. ' ' ^ 

And on p. 71 we have : 

" I have lived to see men of the best light be mistaken, 
as well in party as in principle, as well in politics as in 
religion, and find not only occasion, but even a necessity 
to change hands or sides in both ; I have seen them some- 

* This use of the word " be" is Baconian. Proraus, 957. We be, 
but where we were. And see p. 223 

'^ To the use of the word " case" throughout these writings, and 
in exclusion of synonymous words, we liave already called attention. 



376 THE STOliY OF MY LIFE. 

times run into contrary extremes, beyond their first inten- 
tion, and even without design ; nay, in those unhappy 
changes I have seen them driven into lengths they never 
designed, by the fiery resentment of those whom they 
seemed to have left, and whom they differed from. I 
have lived to see those men acknowledge, even publicly 
and openly, they were wrong and mistaken, and express 
their regret for being misled very sincerely ; but I cannot 
say I have lived to see the people they have desired to re- 
turn to forgive or receive them. Perhaps the age I have 
lived in has not been a proper season for charity ; I hope 
futurity will be furnished with better Christians, or per- 
haps 'tis appointed so to illustrate the Divine mercy, and 
let mankind see that they are the only creatures that 
never forgive. I have seen a man in the case I speak of, 
offer the most sincere acknowledgments of his having 
been mistaken, and this not in matters essential either to 
the person's morals or Christianity, but only in matters of 
party, and with the most moving expressions desire his 
old friends to forgive what has been passed ; and have 
seen their return, be mocking him with what they called 
a baseness of spirit, and a mean submission ; I have seen 
him expostulate with them, why they should not act upon 
the same terms with a penitent,^ as God himself not only 
prescribed, but yields to ; and have seen them in return, 
tell him God might forgive him if he pleased, but they 
would never, and then expose all those offers to the first- 
comer in banter and ridicule : but take me right too, I 
have seen at the same time, that to wiser men it has been 
always thought to be an exposing themselves, and an 
honor to the person. 

" I speak this too feelingly, and therefore say no more ; 
there is a way by patience, to conquer even the universal 
contempt of mankind ; and though two drams of that 
drug be a vomit^ for a dog, it is in my experience the only 

' We have already noted this word " penitent" as Bacon's word 
for this place, and it will be found throughout these writings. See 
p. 20. 
_ ^ Bacon ever used the words vomit and purge, and they, in exclu- 
sion of other words, will be found throuj^hout these writings. In 
Sub. 30 of Bacon's Natural History we have : " The tirst "is, that 
whatsoever cannot be overcome and digested by the stomach, is by 
the stoinach either put up by vomit, or "put down by the guts ; and 
by that motion of expulsion in the stomach and guts, other parts of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 377 

method— there is a secret peace in it, and in time the rage 
of men will abate, a constant, steady adhering to virtue 
and lionesty, and showing the world that Vvdiatever mis- 
takes he might be led into, supposing them to be mistakes, 
that yet the main intention and design of his life was sin- 
cere and njiright :^ he that governs the actions of men by 
an unbiassed hand, will never suffer such a man to sink 
under the weight of universal prejudice and clamour. 

" I, Robinson Crusoe, grown old in affliction, borne 
down by calumny and reproach, but supported from 
within, boldly prescribe this remedy against universal 
clamours and contempt of mankind, — patience, a steady 
life of virtue and sobriety, and a comforting dependence 
on the justice of Providence, will first or last restore the 
patient to the opinion of his friends, and justify him in 
the face of his enemies ; and in the mean time, will sup- 
port him comfortably in despising those who want man- 
ners and charity, and leave tliem to be cursed from heaven 
with their own passions and rage."^ 

Leaving now for the reader's reflection the question as 
to whether Bacon's troubles and life aims are somewhat 
reflected in these quotations, we turn to the New Atlantis, 
the language framework of which, and especially in its 

the body (as the orifices of the veins, and the like) are moved to 
expel by consent." 

^ See Sonnet 70. 

^ The preface to Penn's Maxims, entitled " Fruits of Solitude, in 
Reflections and Maxims Relatluft' to the Conduct of Human Life," 
opens in these words : " Reader, — Tliis manual I present thee with 
is the fruit of solitude, a school few care to learn in, though none 
instruct us better. Some parts of it are the result of seiious reflec- 
tions ; others, the flashings of lucid intervals ; written for private 
satisfaction, and now published for a help to human conduct." 
See p. 368. the allusion to Confucius's Maxims. It was Bacon's labor to 
show that as much could come out of Christian as out of heathen pens. 
See p. 258.' Ptnn's Maxims should be read in connection with the 
Serious Reflections, and with Bacon's Essays, for later we may wish 
the reader to ask himself the question. Who was their author ? The 
word " fruit" as here used is Baconian. Bacon, in speaking of the 
Roman emperors following Domitian, says : " Thus in the succession 
of these six princes, we may witness the happy fruits of learning in 
sovereignty painted in the great table of the world. " (De Augmentis, 
Book l,Bohn ed.,p. 61.) We also find him using such expressions 
as " fruit of conference," " fruit of speech," " some fruit of my pri- 
vate life," etc. In the plays we have " the fruits of my advice," 
" fruits of duty," etc. 



378 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

early pages, is so at one with the story itself of Crusoe, 
as to be in all things identical, though it is the only piece 
of like writing with which Lord Bacon's name has become 
associated. Concerning it Mr. Spedding, in Bacon's Philo- 
sophical Works, vol. iii., p. 122, says : " Perhaps there is 
no single work of his which has so much of himself in 
it." 

He also says : 

** The description of Solomon's House is the description 
of the vision in which he lived, — the vision not of an ideal 
world released from the natural conditions of which ours 
is subject, but of our own world as it might be made if 
we did our duty by it ; of a state of things which he be- 
lieved would one day be actually seen upon this earth, 
such as it is, by men such as we are ; and the coming of 
which he believed that his own labors were sensibly hasten- 
ing. The account of the manners and customs of the 
people of Bensalem is an account of his own taste in 
humanity ; for a man's ideal, though not necessarily a 
description of what he is, is almost always an indication 
of what he would be ; and in the sober pioty, the serious 
cheerfulness, the tender and gracious courtesy, the open- 
handed hospitality, the fidelity in public and chastity in 
private life, the grave and graceful manners,' the order, 
decency, and earnest industry, which prevailed among 
these people, we recognize an image of himself made per- 
fect, — of that condition of the human soul which he loved 
in others and aspired towards in himself. Even the dresses, 

' It is said that prior to 1594, at wliicli time Bacon's Proiiius ISTotes 
began, forms of morning and evening salutation were not used in 
England, In those notes and spread throughout the plays we have 
not only the following, but others. Promus, 1195. Good-day to 
me and good-morrow to you. Promus, 1193. Good betimes, bonuvi 
Qiiane. Pronins, 1192. Good matens. (From Bon matin.) 

" The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire : 
Adieu, adieu ! Hamlet, remember me." 

— Hamlet, Act i., sc. 5, p. 234. 
Promus, 1189. Good-morrow. 

" Young son, it argues a distempered head 
So soon to bid good-morrow to thy bed." 

— Rome and Juliet, Act ii. sc. 3. 

And so may we again call into relation our Head-light : " For I have 
taken all knowledge to be my providence." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 379 

the household arrangements, the order of their feasts and 
solemnities, their very gestures of welcome and sakitation, 
have an interest and significance independent of the fiction, 
as so man}^ records of Jiacon's personal taste in such mat- 
ters. Nor ouglit the stories which the Governor of the 
House of Strangers tells about the state of navigation and 
population in the early post-diluvian ages, to be regarded 
merely as romances invented to vary and enrich the narra- 
tive, but rather as belonging to a class of serious specula- 
tions to which Bacon's mind was prone. As in his visions 
of the future, embodied in the achievements of Solomon's 
House, there is nothing which he did not conceive to be 
really practicable by the means which he supposes to be 
used ; so in his speculations concerning the past, embodied 
in the traditions of Bensalem, 1 doubt whether there be 
any (setting aside, of course, the particular history of the 
fabulous island) which he did not believe to be historically 
probable." 

The scene in the New Atlantis, as well as in Crusoe and 
The Tempest, is located, let it be noted, first in a boat at 
sea and then upon an isUxnd ; and which works we have 
undertaken to show as products of one and the same mind, 
as stated in our Introduction to this work. 

The New Atlantis is supposed to have been written in 
1024, and Mr. Spedding thinks still earlier. Bacon de- 
signed it to follow his Sylva Sylvarum ; or, Natural History, 
and it was in this order first published by Dr. Rawley in 
1627, the year following Bacon's supposed death. It is a 
kind of voyage to that end, of which the Natural History 
was the beginning. The selected particulars of knowl- 
edge as set out in it constitute the nucleus for the fram- 
ing of his tables.' By its methods only can the sense 
properly inform the understanding, as he thought. When 
thus pursued as a system, he says : " And then shall we 
be no longer kept dancing within little rings, like persons 
bewitched, but our range and circuit will be as wide as 
the compass of the world." This growing Natural His- 
tory carried forward under his methods, by those that 
should come after him, it serving but as a pattern or be- 

' And these tables he applied as well to mental as to material 
change, as we have seen. As with his views " putrefaction is 
the bastard brother of vivication," so note the bastard brothers of 
the plays. 



^80 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. " 

ginning, was to be the widening influence in human idea- 
tion.' Was there fault in the method? or did the weak- 
ness lie in the race to follow it? But Mr. Spedding says 
that the same may be accomplished by easier processes. 
Much, indeed, may be so accomplished, but not, we think, 
the same. These processes would bring influences per- 
manently widening. 

Mr. Spedding, however, says : " He delivered a set of 
cautions as to the use of the human understanding, ap- 
plicable to the pursuit of truth in all departments, which 
have scarcely been added to or improved upon since his 
time." 

It should be understood that Bacon did not expect the 
race, as such, to follow his methods. He, in fact, says 
that the masses have neither the opportunity nor the 
ability to follow these subtleties. The New Atlantis is 
indeed a most comprehensive scheme, to form an organiza- 
tion or society, whose dealt-out influences upon the race 
should be permanent in growth, its attained knowledge 
ending not with the life of its members -a society for 
overcoming errors and difficulties, both physical and in- 
fluential ; or, in other words, both physical and political. 

But Bacon's political influence having been ruined, by 
the ruin of his name, he turned more for fruit, so far as 
now appears, to the line of philosophy, though what he 
did j^olitically will, if our views be correct, be seen further 
on. He, indeed, opens ch. 3 of Book 8 of the De Aug- 
mentis, issued in 1623, in these words : '' We come now 
to the art of empire, or the doctrine of governing a state, 
which includes economics, as a city includes a family. 
But here, according to my former resolution, I impose 
silence upon myself ; how well qualified soever I might 
seem to treat the subject, from the constant course of life, 
studies, employs, and the public posts I have, for a long 
series of years, sustained, even to the highest in the king- 
dom, which, through his majesty's favor, and no merit of 
my own, I held for four years. And this I speak to pos- 

' Of it he says : " For I want this primary liistor}^ to be composed 
with a most reh.G^ious care, as if every paiticiilar were stated upon 
oath ; seeing that it is the book of God's works, and (so far as the 
majesty of heavenly may be compared with the humbleness of 
eartldy things) a kind of second IScripture." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., 
p. 201. And see note 1, p. 41.) 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 381 

terity, not out of ostentation ; but because I judge it may 
somewhat impart the dignity of learning, to have a man 
born for letters rather than anything else, who should, by 
a certain fatality, and against the bent of his genius, be 
compelled into active life, and yet be raised by a prudent 
king, to the greatest posts^ of honor, trust, and civil em- 
ploy. And if I should hereafter have leisure to write upon 
government, the work will probably either be posthumous 
or abortive." ^ 

Hazlitt, in his preface to the works of Defoe, among 
other things says : " Defoe was a giant in literature : 
there is no English author who has written so variously, 
and few who have written so well. It is difficult to imag- 
ine a subject which has not been illustrated by his graceful 
and powerful pen. There is no class of readers to whom 
he does not successfully address himself. Though known, 
until of very late years, almost entirely as a writer of fic- 
tion, which will probably constitute the basis of his fame 
in succeeding times, it was for politics chiefly that he 
ac({uired distinction with his contemporaries, who bore wit- 
ness to the influence of his writings." 

He also says " that no man who sits down to study the 
history of his country with minute exactness, can hope 
for satisfaction upon a variety of points, without a pre- 
vious acquaintance with the writings of Defoe." 

The New Atlantis is divided into twelve heads and one 
concealed, and its employments were as follows :^ 

"For the several employments and offices of our fel- 
lows ;"* we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, 
under the names of other nations (for our own we con- 
ceal) ; who bring us the books, and abstracts, and pat- 

^ As to the posts of honor and the pilgrimage of life, see Addison, 
vol. ill., pp. 98-102. Piomus, 508. As far goeth the pilgrim as the 
post. 

2 This last sentence shows a distinct intention of reserving the 
publication of any papers upon political issues until after his death. 

3 Note in the New Athmtis the mention of the Upper, Middle, and 
Lower regions, cafled under review in earlier pages. 

•* Let the word " fellows" as used in the New Atlantis, in Shake- 
speare, in The Pilgrim's Progress, and, in fact, in all of the works 
under review be called into "distinct relation. In The Pilgrim's 
Progress, at p. 186, we have : " So Hopeful, being persuaded by 
his fellow^ went after him over the stile." Piomus, C81. You 
would be over the stile before you come at it. 



382 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

terns of experiments of all other parts. These we call 
Merchants of Light. 

" We have three that collect the experiments which are 
in all books. These we call Depredators. 

"■ We have three that collect the experiments of all 
mechanical arts ; and also of liberal sciences ; and also of 
practices which are not brought into arts. These we call 
Mystery-men. 

" We have three that try new experiments, such as 
themselves think good.' These we call Pioneers or 
Miners. 

" We have three that draw the experiments of the former 
four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the 
dravving of observations and axioms out of them. These 
we call Compilers. 

» ' We have three that bend^ themselves, looking into the 
experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw 
out of them things of use and practice for men's lives, 
and knowledge as well for works as for plain demonstra- 
tion of causes, means of natural divinations,^ and the easy 
and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. 
These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors. 

" Then after diverse meetings and consults of our whole 
number, to consider of the former labors and collections, 
we have three that take care, out of them, to direct new 
experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into 
nature than the former. These we call Lamps. 

" We have three others that do execute the experiments 
so directed, and rej)ort them. These we call Inoculators. 

^' Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries 
by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and 
aphorisms. These we call Interpreters" of Nature. 

* Note throughout these writings this unusual expression " think 
good." See p. 156, note 1. 

^ As to this use of this word bend, we from Hamlet, Act i,, sc. 2, 
p. 210, quote as follows : 

" And, we beseech you, bend you to remain 
Here, in the cheer a'jd comfort of our eye. 
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son." 

^ Note tlie subject of natural divination as treated in portions of 
the Defoe literature. 

■* Note in The Pilgrim's Progress that it is always the Interpreter 
that presents the penitent with types or patterns for thought. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 383 

*' We have also, as you must think, novices and appren- 
tices, that the succession of the former employed men do 
not fail ; besides a great number of servants and atten- 
dants, men and women. And this we do also : we have 
consultations, which of the inventions and experiments 
which we have discovered shall be published, and which 
not : and take all an oath of secrecy, for the concealing 
of those Avhich we think fit to keep secret ; though some 
of those we do reveal sometimes to the state, and some 
not.'^ 

Here follows a statement concerning the formation of 
statues to inventor, after which we have : " Lastly, we 
have circuits or visits of diverse principal cities of the 
kingdom ; where as it conieth to pass, we do publish such 
new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do 
also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues,' 
swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earth- 
quakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the 
year, and diverse other things ; and we give counsel there- 
upon what the people shall do for the j^^'^'vention and 
remedy of them." 

And at the end of the work we have : ''God bless thee, 
my son, and God bless this relation wnich I have made. 
I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other 
nations ; for we here are in God's bosom, a land un- 
known.'' ' 

Let it be now noted that this work seems as if a rem- 
nant, or as if broken off, from some other piece of com- 
position. It opens in these words : 

" AVe sailed from Peru (where we had continued for 
the space of one whole year), for China and Japan, by the 
xSouth Sea ; taking with us victuals for twelve months ; 
and had good winds from the east, thongh soft and weak, 
for five months' space and more. But then the winds 
came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as 
we could make little or no way, and were sometimes in 
purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong 
and great winds from the sonth, with a point east : which 
carried us np (for all that we could do) toward the north : 
by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made 
good spare of them. So that finding ourselves in the 

' See Defoe's History of the Plague in Loudon. 
2 Is there any indication here of secret methods ?^ 



384 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

midst of tlio greatest wilderness of waters in the world, 
without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost men, and pre- 
l^ared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices 
to God above, who shoioetli his tvonders in the deep ; be- 
seeching him of his mercy, that as in the beginning he 
discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry 
land, so he would now discover land to us, that we might 
not perish. And it came to pass that the next day about 
evening, we saw within a kenning before us, towards the 
north, as it were thick clouds which did put us in some 
hope of land ; knowing how that part of the South Sea 
was utterly unknown ; and might have islands or conti- 
nents, that hitherto were not come to light. ^ Wherefore 
we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance 
of land, all that night ; and in the dawning of the next 
day, we might plainly discern that it w^as a land ; flat to 
our sight, and full of boscage ; which made it show the 
more dark." 

Already have we alluded to Bacon's secret project for 
revenue, and which Mr. Spedding says has never come to 
light. Later we shall claim to the reader that the great 
South Sea scheme for revenue of the Defoe period was but 
an attempt by Harley to re-enact a thwarted Baconian 
scheme. South Sea discoveries, even in the phiys, are 
made the subject of comment. In As You Like It,^ Act 
iii., sc. 2, p. 201, we have : 

"Bos. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am 
caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my dis- 
position ? One inch of dehiy more is a South-sea of discovery. I 
pr'ythee, tell me, who is it ? quickly, and speak apace :^ I would 
thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st pour this conceal'd man 

' In the mentioned private notes made by Bacon in 1608 we have : 
" Ordinary discours of plus ultra in Sciences, as well the intellec- 
tnall globe as the materiall illustrated by discovery in o'' Age." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., p. 64.) 

'^ Hudson sa.ys : " Finally, we have to confess that, upon the 
whole. As You Like It is our favorite of Shakespeare's comedies " 
He further says : " Tlie play was never printed, so far as we know, 
till in the folio of 1623." See p. 340, note 1. 

3 The word " apace" is a distinctive Baconian word, and it will be 
found in every phase of these wrritings. Bacon in Sub. 374 of his 
Natural History says : " We see that if wind blov^^eth upon a candle 
it wasteth apace." Note the use of the word in The Pilsj^rim's 
Progress at pp. 107, 110, 228, 278. And on p. 332 we have : " The 
lion came on apace and Mr. Greatheart addressed himself to give 
him battle." In Addison, vol. iii., p. 434, we have: "From this 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 385 

out of tliy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-moutli'd bottle ; 
either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee, take the cork 
out of thy mouth, that I may drink' thy tidings." 

Let it be investigated as to whether the vojage to the 
South Sea described in Defoe's " New Voyage Eoiind the 
World," and evidently written to induce colonization. and 
mining, was founded upon facts gathered from some of 
the voyages of Sir Walter Raleigh, the last having been 
made in 1617.'' In the Bohn edition of the work the 
story at p. 324 is said there to be broken off and from 
that point begun anew.^ Let its style in composition be 
here brought into relation with the New Atlantis. And 
note the following from p. 331 : • 

'' I cannot help being of the opinion, let the maj) makers 
j^lace them where they will/ that those islands whore we 
so successfully fished for oysters, or rather for pearl, are 
the same which the ancient geographers have called Solo- 
mon's Islands ; and though tliey are so far south, the 
riches of them may not be the less, nor are they more out 
of the way. On the contrary, they lie directly in the 
track which our navigators would take, if they thought 
fit, either to go or come between Europe and the East 
Indies, seeing they that come about Cape Horn seldom go 
less south than the latitude of 63 or 64° ; and these islands, 
as I have said, lie in the latitude of 40 to 48° south, and 
extend themselves near one hundred and sixty leagues in 
breadth from north to south. 

time the armies being checkered with both sexes, they polished 
apace." 

' In his Essay entitled " Of Youth and Age" Bacon says : "And 
certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxi- 
citeth : and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, 
than in the virtues of the will and affections." And see p. 208, 
note 1. 

2 But also see in this connection, in the Britannica article on 
geography, Drake's voyage round the world and the discoveries 
generally of this period. 

^ Before the breaking off of the story it is on p. 323 said : " And 
here taking an observation, I found we were in latitude of 50° 30', 
and that our meridian distance from the Ladrones west was 87% 
being almost one semi-diameter of the globe, so that we could not 
be far from the coast of America, which was my next design, and 
indeed the chief design of the whole voyage." Beginning at p. 318, 
note what is said as to the subject of trade. The second part of the 
voyage was directed to Chili and Peru. 

^ Note in all these writings the expression " where they will," 
13 



386 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

*' Without doubt these islands would make a very 
noble* settlement, in order to yictual"^ and relieve the 
European merchants in so long a run as they have to make ; 
and when this trade came to be more frequented, the call- 
ing of these ships there would enrich the islands, as the 
English at St. Helena are enriched by the refreshing 
which the East India ships find that meet there."' ' 

Note in the perusal of this story that the voyage of the 
New Atlantis opens by a departure from Peru. 

Bacon looked upon Ealeigh as one who might lend aid 
in the Great Instauration, as we have seen. While still 
a piisoner of the Tower, he claimed to have knowledge 
concerning a mine of gold and silver, one of great wealth, 
and for purposes of revenue he is said to have made cer- 
tain proposals touching the same, first to the Lord Treas- 
uier, Salisbury, in 1607, to Lord Haddington in 1610, and 
to the Lords of the Council in 1611. With his offer in 
1610 he says : '' I am content to be committed to others ; 
i^nd setting down the course and project in writing, if at 
any time 1 persuade the contrary, let them east me into 
the sea. Secondly, when God shall permit us to arrive, 
if I bring them not to a mountain (near a navigable river) 
covered with gold and silver ore, let the commander have 
commission to cut oif my head there. If this be not suffi- 
cient, I will presume to nominate unto his M. such com- 
manders as he shall like of, who will be bound, body for 
body, to return me alive or dead. And if I have mistaken 
myself and may be yet of more price, his M. shall have 
forty thousand pounds bounty to boot." ^ See these facts, 
Bacon's Letters, vol, vi., p. 343. 

^ We here again have what may be called Lord Bacon's most 
marked word. See p. 54, note 4. 

* Note this word " victual " in the New Atlantis, and it is the 
word for tliis place found in all of the works under review, and to the 
exclusion of synonymous words. In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 395, 
we have : " Nor was there, on all this ground, so much as an inn or 
victualling house wherein to refresh the feebler sort." 

^ And on p. 355 it is said : " So that, in short, I was as well pleased 
without lighting as they could be ; besides, I had other projects now 
in my head, and those of no less consequence than of planting a 
new world, and settling new kingdoms, to the honor and advantage 
of mv country," etc. And see the subject of mining beginning at 
p. 36i ; also p. 288. 

^ This, it will be remembered, was the amount of the fine imposed 
upon Bacon by the Parliament in which he met his overthrow. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 387 

After Salisbury's death another offer was made to 
Secretary of State Win wood, and receiving the favor of 
Buckingham, was finally entered into with the consent of 
the king. And on August 26th, 1616, Ealeigh's commis- 
sion was signed, and on June 12th, 1617, he sailed from 
Plymouth. Men of wealth were deeply concerned in the 
enterprise, and the adventurers were to have all advantages, 
save that one-fifth part was to be reserved to the crown. 
Tlie enterprise was a financial failure,' and Raleigh having 
violated his commission by committing depredations upon 
the Spanish dominions in burning the town of St. Thomas, 
though claimed as done in self-defence, was upon his re- 
turn and upon the demands of Spain executed October 
29t]\. 1618. Much uncertainty hangs about this matter, 
as will appear from Mr. Spedding's presentation. 

As to those who placed their fortunes at hazard. Bacon, 
in his declaration concerning Raleigh, says : '^ In execu- 
tion therefore of these his designs, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
carrying tiie reputation of an active, witty and valiant 
gentleman and especially a great commander at sea, by 
the enticement of this golden bait- of the mine, and the 
estimation of his own name, drew unto him many brave 
captains and otiier knights and gentlemen of great blood 
and v/orth to hazard and adventure their lives, and the 
whole or a great part of their estates and fortunes in this 
his voyage : whose ruins and decays following remain as 
sad and grievous relics and monuments of his unfortunate 
journey and unfaithful proceedings." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vi., p. 392.) 

As to the thwarting of this enterprise and the final re- 
sults upon Bacon, we may learn more when we come to 
the Defoe literature.^ 

* Later we shall call this enterprise into relation with the South 
Sea scheme of the Defoe period. 

* Look in the plays for "golden bait," " golden care." " goklen 
world," "golden fire," "golden words," "golden cadence," 
" golden sleep," etc. Promus, 1207. Golden sleep. 

" But where unbraised youth, with tinstuff 'd brain. 
Doth couch his hmbs, there golden sleep doth reign." 

— Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. sc. 3. 

^ See if (here is any relatipn here with the hill Lucre and the silver 
mine of The Pilgrim's Progress, beginning at pp. 180 and 375. 



BAOONIAF TEAMEWOEK IN 
OEUSOE. 



"We here set out, from the story itself of Crusoe, some 
distinctive Baconian expressions and sentence formation. 

In this we have made use of the Bohn edition of that 
work. The figures following the expressions indicate the 
pages from which they are taken. 

" He told me it was men of desperate fortunes, on one 
hand, or of superior fortunes, on the other, who went 
abroad upon adventures, aspiring to rise by enterprise, 
and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature 
out of the common road ;i that these things were all either 
too far above me, or too far below me ; that mine was the 
middle state/ or what might be called the upper station 
of low life, which he had found, by long experience, was 
the best state in the world, the most suited to human 
happiness ; not exposed to the miseries and hardships, tbe 
labor and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind, 
and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, 
and envy of the upper part of mankind : he told me, 
I might judge of the happiness of this state by one thing, 
viz., that this was the state of life which all other people 
envied ; that kings have frequently lamented the miser- 
able consequences of being born to great things, and 

'The expression "common road" is Baconian. Bacon says: 
" For the magnalia of nature generally lie out of the common roads 
and beaten paths, so that the very absurdity of the thing may some- 
times prove of service." (De Augmentis, ch. 2, Book 5.) See p. 82. 

'■^ Already have we called attention to Bacon's use of the expres- 
sions " middle state," " middle place," " middle region," and which 
spring from his interpretation of the fable " Scylla and Icarus, 
or the Middle Way." And note the use of the word "part" later 
in this sentence. 



BACONIAN FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 389 

wished they had been placed in the middle of two ex- 
tremes, between the mean and the great ; that the wise 
man gave his testimony to this as the just standard of true 
felicity, when he prayed to have ' neither poverty nor 
riches.'" p. 2 — which was not yet come to the pitch of 
hardness,! 5 — shall be all undone, 7 — 1 thought that the 
bitterness of death had been past, 7— the terror of the 
storm, put me into such a condition, that I can by no 
words describe it, 8 — I saw what is not often seen, the 
master, the boatswain, and some others, more sensible 
than the rest, at their prayers,^ 8 — they rather put me into 
the boat, than that I might be said to go in, 9 — loud calls 
from my reason, 10 — of my most retired thoughts, 10 — ■ 
a plain and visible token, 10 — with a strange kind of pas- 
sion, 10— This indeed was, as I said, but an excursion^ of 
my spirits, 10— shame opposed the best motions that 
offered to my thoughts, 11 — the little motion I had in my 
desires,"* 11 — money in my pocket, 11 — in the habit of a 
gentleman, 11 — I first fell acquainted with the master of 
a ship, who had been oir the coast of Guinea, 11 — such 
toys and trifles, 12 — this melancholy part of our story, 
14—1 was undone, 14 — we made him very merry, 14 — in 
a stark calm,^ 15 — which he innocently came into also, 
16 — blow which way it would, IG — if you will not stroke 
your face to be true to me,^ 17 — towards the strait's 

! This use of the word " pitch" is distinctly Baconian. In his 
letter of advice to Villiers, in 1616, he makes use of the expression 
" had brought you to this high pitch of honor." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vi., p. 13.) In Aph. 14, Book 2 of the Novum Organum he 
says : ' ' The heat of the heavenly bodies, even in the warmest climates 
and seasons, never reaches such a pitch as to light or burn the driest 
wood or straw, or even tinder without the aid of burning-glasses." 
In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 173, we have the expression " and is 
arrived to such a pitch of breeding." In Addison, vol. iii., p. 199, 
we have : " In the second, the chief actor in the poem falls from 
some eminent pitch of honor and prosperity, into misery and disgrace. " 

2 See first scene in the play of The Tempest. 

3 See the distinctive use of this word by Bacon at p. 361, note 1. 
"We regret that space will not permit us to do as much as we had 
intended upon this part of the work. 

^ Note the Baconian use of the word "motion" as applied to 
desires. 

^ In Sub, 400 of Bacon's Natural History we have the expression 
"stark dead." And in the Taming of the Shrew, Act i., sc. 1, p. 
416, we have the expression " stark mad." 

^ Promus, 594. {Hold your friend tigh tUj by the face. ) See p. 35 and 268. 



390 BACONIAN FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 

month, 17 — bending my course, 17 — I knew very ill how 
to do it, 21 — to make them amends, 22 — the wound which 
was his mortal hurt, 22 — they fell to work, 23 — I could 
not well tell what I had best to do, 23—1 let him know,^ 
28 — all of these miscarriages, 28 — gulf of human misery, 
29 — such toys, 30 — took us quite out of our knowledge, 
31 — I could not deliver myself from the waves,^ 33 — I held 
my hold till the wave abated, 34— and then I fetched^ 
another run, 34 — to express to the life, 34 — to let him 
blood,* 34— two shoes that were not fellows,^ 34 — with the 
comfortable part of my condition, 35 — I soon found my 
comforts abate, 35 — I resolved to fall to work with these, 
37 — the least cap-full of wind, 38 — overset all my naviga- 
tion, 38 — there was some indraft of the water, 38 — As 
I imagined, so it was, 38 — I saw not which way to. supply 

^ To this distinctive Baconian expression we have already called 
attention. Bacon says : " But if any one be reminded here of chiro- 
mancy, let him know that it is a vain imposture, and not worthy to 
be so much as mentioned in discourses of this nature." (Phil. 
Works, vol. iv., p. 370.) 

^ I*romus, 743. (In the arms of the waves. Said of those who 
are tossed about in a sea of troubles.) 

'^ To this most unusual use of the word " fetch," please see p. 138 
and 204. 

'^ Note tliis most unusual combination of words. Yet Bacon, in 
Sub. 657 of his Natural History, says : " The sap of trees when 
they are let blood, is of difering natures. " In Love's Labour's Lost, 
Act ii., sc. 1, p. 391, we have : 

" Bos. Is the fool sick ? 
Bir. Sick at heart. 
Bos. Alack! let it blood." 

^ Here we find a most singular use of the word " fellows," and 
yet we shall find that singularity to have been Bacon's. In Sub. 
294 of his Natural History he says: "Time and heat are fellow^s 
in many effects." And in Sub. 441 he says : " Therefore amongst 
strawberries sow here and there some borage-seed, and you shall 
find the strawberries under those leaves far more large than their 
fellows." Again: " Tlie state of his Majesty's treasure maketh 
me sad, and I am sorry I was not at Tiballs to report it, or that it 
was not done by my fellow^s." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii,, p. 116. 
In Addison, vol. ii., p. 215, we have the expression " it was very 
visible that the features of his face were not fellows." And on 
p. 400 we have : " There is a double praise due to virtue, when it is 
lodged in a body that seems to have been prepared for the reception 
of vice ; in many such cases the soul and body do not seem to be 
fellows." 



BACOJ^IAN FKAMEWOKK IN CRUSOE. 391 

myself, 40 — with infinite labour, 42 — I smiled to myself at 
the sight of this money ; drug ! I exclaimed, what art 
thou good for? 43 — descended irregularly every way clown 
into the low ground,* 44 — The entrance to this place I 
made to be not by a door, but by a short ladder, 44 — 
which I gave suck to,- 46 — all evils are to be considered 
with the good that is in them, 47 — after my strength 
should decay, ^ 48 — it came into my thoughts, 49 — to de- 
liver my thoughts from daily pouring upon them and 
afflicting my mind, 50 — that as reason is the substance 
and original of the mathematics, so by stating and squar- 
ing everything by reason and by making the most rational 
judgment of everything every man may be in time master 
of every mechanic art, 52 — that I might come at them, 
52 — I went out into the island, 55 — though not to my 
liking, 56 — and with much ado,'* 56 — so I gave it over,^ 

^ Note here the use of the word "into," and later we have tlie 
expression " went oat into the island." Many of the distinctive ex 
pres«ions here found have been already touched upon. 

^ This is a Baconian expression, and found in Macbeth and in many 
places in this literature. See Gulliver's Travels, p. 138. Bacon in 
his Essay entitled " Of Travel " says : " As for the acquaintance 
which is to be sought in travel ; that which is most of all profitable, 
is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of ambassa- 
dors ; for so in travelling in one country he shall suck the experience 
of many," 

3 The word " decay" was ever Bacon's word for this place, apply- 
ing it as well to mind as to matter and to the exclusion of synonvms. 
He says : " I am much fallen in love with a private life ; and yet I 
shall so spend my time, as shall not decay my abilities for use." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 298.) Promus, 547. Anger of all 
passions beareth the age best, (Ira omnium tardissime senescit, — 
Eras. Ad., 231 — i.e., It is last to decay.) Note the use of the word 
in The Pilgrim's Progress. And on p. 359 we have : " Besides, 
I have observed that old men have blessed themselves with this 
mistake ; namely, taking the decays of nature for a gracious con- 
quest over corruptions ; and so have been apt to beguile themselves." 

^ This word " ado" and the w^ord " undone" are found through- 
out, and in tlie New Atlantis, p. 147, we have the expression " with 
much ado we refrained them." In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 274, 
we have : " I had much ado to forbear crying out, undone !" 

° Bacon says : " But (my Lords) this is a sea of matter : and 
therefore I must give it over, and conclude," etc. (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. v., p. 144. And see our quotations at pp. 2G, 210, note 1, p. 247.) 
In the Merry Wiv^es of Windsor, Act iv., sc. 6, p. 313, we have : 

" Host. jNIaster Fenton, talk not to me : my mind is heavy ; I will 
give over all." 



392 BACONIAN" FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 

57 — For if I had been under it I had never wanted a 
grave-digger, 59 — I knocked up nails on the post,' 58 — 
the leg grew well, 58 — but I went abroad early and late, 
58 — and hard to come at,^ 58— so I gave that over also, 59 
— in the middle of all my labours, 59 — and being willing 
to have the bag for some other use, 60 — confusion of my 
thoughts, 60 — without so much as inquiring into the end 
of Providence, 60— it occurred to my thoughts, 60 — so 
strange and unforeseen a Providence, 60— as I shall show 
afterwards in its order,^ 61 — of which in its place, 61 — 
with all speed, 63 — it had taken water, 64 — I was obliged 
to give over for that time, 65 — I would feign have stewed 
it, 67 — it ended where it began* in a mere common flight 
of joy, 68 — raised vapours in my head, 69 — the return of 
my distemper, 71 — as "if I were resolved that it should hit 
one way or otber, 73 — I missed the fit for good and all,® 
74 — as long as my thoughts should engage me, 74 — but 
what they w^ere I knew not, 77 — to anticipate my bondage, 
78 — I had but newly finished my fence and began to 
enjoy myself, 79 — I cast up the notches on my post, 79 — 
finishing the day as I began it, 80—1 bought all my ex- 
perience before I had it, 80 — which I had no way to fur- 
nish myself with, 82—1 found them to my purpose, 83 — 
I employed a world of time about it, 83 — after some pause, ^ 

^ I do not remember to have noticed in Bacon's attributed writings 
any occasion for the use of this word " knock," but in the play of 
The Tempest, Act iii,, sc. 2, p. 69, we have : 

" Gal. Yea, yea, my lord : I'll yield him thee asleep, 
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head." 

^ This expression, and this use of the word "at," was common 
with Bacon. He also used it thus : " This may be done, if you 
put them in a pot or vessel well covered, that the moisture of the 
earth come not at tliem ; or else by puttino; them in a conservatory 
of snow." (Sub. 379 of Bacon's Natural Ilistory.) 

^ This and the next expression are common forms with which to 
postpone subjects of thought in all these writings. Let them be 
noted. Another of these forms ma}" be seen in Addison, vol. iv., p. 
82, where we have : " But of this more hereafter." 

^ See p. 127. 

^ As to the expression " for good and all " we, from another of 
these voyagers, soon to be introduced, quote as follows : " But let 
not this encourage either the present age or posterity to trust their 
noses into the keeping of their eyes, which may prove the fairest 
way of losing them for good and all." (Swift's Works, p. 143.) 

^ Bacon says : " For I thouglit it good to make some pause upon 
that which is received ; that thereby the old may be more easily 



BACONIAI^ FRAMEWORK IX CRUSOE. 393 

84 — will be very diverting in its place^ 84 — I could not 
see which was my way by any direction but that of the 
sun, 85 — it was so tame with being hungry, 87 — and now 
I changed both my sorrows and my joys ; my very desires 
altered^ my affections changed their gusts, and my delights 
were properly new from what they were at my first com- 
ing, 87 — locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the 
ocean, 87 — this would brake out upon me like a storm, 
87 — and my grief being exhausted would abate, 88 — it 
began to be ripe apace, 89 — this work took me up full 
three months, 92 — which was the thing I was upon, 93 — 
Here I was at a full stop,^ 94 — and thus I made shifL^ for 
many years, 95— and now I began to give myself, over for 
lost, 107 -Thus we never see the true state of our condi- 
tion till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, 107 — I 
made things round and shapable,^ 111 — deep baskets 
were the receivers of my corn, 111 — but I could not by 

made perfect and the new more easily approached." (Phil. Works, 
vol. W., p. 23.) And in the New Atlantis, p. 153, we have the 
expression " Upon his pause of speech." In Hamlet, Act ill., sc. 3, 
p. 301, we have : 

" And, like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
And both neglect." 

^ See this use of the word " stop" at pp. 293 and 324 of Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vi. And in The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 400, we hare : 
" Then I continued to give thanks for this my great deliverance ; 
for I verily believe she intended no good, bat rather sought to make 
a stop of me in my journey." 

'^ The words "shift" and "drift" are fixed words of this litera- 
ture, and we find Bacon using the expression " better at shift than 
at drift." Note these words throughout the plays. In Romeo and 
Juliet, Act ii., sc, 3, p. 76, we have : 

" F}^i. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift : 
Riddling confession finds bat riddling shift." 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 202, we have : " Now, after a while 
Littlefaith came to himself, and getting up, made shift to scramble 
on his w^ay." 

2 This alludes to the making of his clay pots. Promus, 728. (An 
earthen pot in the threshold. Said of what is contemptible and not 
worth carrying off.— Eras. Ad., 376.) Promus, 727. An earthen- 
ware god. Some of the minor deities were made of wood or clay, 
like pots (ollai.) 

" Men are but gilded loam or painted clay." 

— Richard II., Act i,, sc. 2. 



304 BACONIAN FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 

any means bring it to pass, 111 — to study some art to 
trap and snare tlie goats, 112 — to go about' to bring him 
away, 112 — I could have killed him, but that was not my 
business nor would it answer my end, 113 — It was a good 
while before they would feed, 113 — breeding some up 
tame, 113 — I pitched upon a place very proper for all 
these, 113 — Nor was the madness'" of it so great as to the 
compass, 113 — This was acting with some prudence, 114 
— I inclosed five several pieces of ground, 114 — after a 
great many essays and miscarriages, 114 — There was my 
majesty, the prince and lord of tlie whole island ; I had 
the lives of all my subjects at my absolute command ; I 
could hang, draw, give liberty, and take it away ; and no 
rebels among all my snbjects/ 114 — and had found no 
species to multiply his kind upon, 114 — I had such a 
terror upon my spirits, 116 — but it was all one,* 11 9 — • 
terrified to the last degree, 119 — that as I could not guess 
what the ends of divine wisdom might be in all this, so 
I was not to dispute his sovereignty who, as I was his 
creature, had an undoubted right, by creating, to govern 
and dispose of me absolutely as he thougjit fit, 121 — these 
thoughts took me up many hours and gave me the vapours 
to the highest degree, 123 — and my head was full of 
vapours as above, 123 — this confusion of my thoughts, 123 

^ Bacon iu his Essay on "Sedition and Troubles" says : " For the 
despising of them many times checks them best ; and the going 
about to stop them doth but make a wonder long-lived." And see 
p. 32, note 1. 

^ Note the word "madness" througliout and particularly in tlie 
plaj^s. Promus, 919. (Madness makes tliem go ; shame makes 
them stay.) 

^ Already have we seen in connection with the New Atlantis 
Bacon's broken-off intention to give a system of laws for his model 
government. He, however, in tliis work Crusoe, at p. 186, touches 
the nucleus, we think, upon which it was to be founded. 

^ Bacon says : " And yet that had been all one to the sharpness of 
the angle." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 647.) And in the New 
Atlantis, p. 135, w^e have the expression "for to us it is all one." 
This expression was common with Bacon. It may be seen in The 
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 220, and is found in many place in the plays. 
In the play of Henry V.. Act iv., sc. 7, p. 560, we have : " There is 
a river in Macedon, aud there is also moreover a river at Monmouth : 
it is call'd Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains, what is the 
name of the other river : but 'tis all one ; 'tis like as my fingers is to 
my fingers, and there is salmons in both." See if this subtlety has 
any relation to Monmouth, later to be alluded to. See p. 348. 



BACONIAi^ FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 395 

— holes about as big as I might put my arm out at, 124 — 
Thus I took all the measures that human prudence' could 
suggest, 125 — while this was doing, 125 — to live in the 
constant snare of the fear of men, 126 — upon the religious 
part of my thoughts, 126 — of which hereafter,* 127 — in 
this frame of thoughtfulness, 128— which I had no manner 
of occasion to do, 128 — it was by traps and snares, 129 — 
it put me upon reflecting,^ 129 — had taken off the edge of 
my intention, 129--But my invention ran quite another 
way, 130 — These considerations put me to a pause and to 
a kind of full stop, ^.133 — for certain it is, 134 — I resolved 
it all at last into thankfulness, 135 — a secret hint shall 
direct us this way when we intended to go that way, 135 
— these secret hints and pressings of mind, 135 — nor 
would any man else, 136 — a weed like nettles, 138 — where 
none could come at them, 138— and as it was tide of ebb, 
141 — all the time of the tide of flood, 141 — As I expected, 
so it proved, 141 — and with all the speed 1 was able to 
make, 141 — the perturbation of mind during this, 142 — 
they must needs see it, 143 — Had they seen the island, as 
T must necessarily suppose they did not, 144 — as might be 
the case many ways, 144 — I cannot explain by any possible 
enero-y of words, 144 — those same secret springs in the 
affections, 145— and the same evening about an hour 
within night^ I reached the island, 148 — cost what it 
would, 153 — wear off the edge of my desire, 154— It came 
now very warmly upon my thoughts, 156 — He fell to 

' In cli. 3, Book 8 of tlie De Augmentis we have : " The narrow- 
ness of human prudence cannot foresee all cases that time may 
produce." 

-Bacon says: "And I am not now speaking of the sources of 
particuhir winds (of which hereafter), but of the place* in which 
winds in general are bred," (Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 159.) And 
on p. 318 he says : "In the mean time the mind also has its periods, 
though they cannot be described by years ; as a failing memory 
and the like, of which hereafter." Often by this distinctive expres- 
sion did Bacon suspend examination upon a subject. See p. 392, note 3. 

•^ In the New Atlantis, p. 129, we have the expression " which did 
put us in some hope of laud." 

^ This use of the words " pause" and " stop" by Bacon we have 
sufficiently noted. As circumstances have limited our time, we 
have not been able to do for this part of our subject wliat was orig- 
inally designed. But w^e trust the reader will here lend aid in search- 
ing out these relations. 

^ See this expression, "within night," iu the New Atlantis, p 
137. 



396 BACONIAN FRAMEWORK IN CRUSOE. 

work,' 158 — He was a comely/ handsome fellow, perfectly 
well made, with straight strong limbs, not too large, tall 
and well shaped, 158— And first I let him know his name 
should he Friday, 159—1 called him so for the memory of 
the time, 159 — but I discovered so much abhorrence, at 
the very thought of it, 160 — for never man had a more 
faithful, loving, sincere servant, 161 — his very affections 
were tied to me, 161 — the many testimonies he gave me of 
this put it out of doubt, 161 — but I shut it up, and 
checked my thoughts, 162 — as we are all the clay in the 
hand of the potter, 162 — to bring Friday off from his 
horrid way of feeding, 163 — but I could easily see the 
meaning was, to pray me not to kill him, 163 — which was 
indeed a parrot, though I thought it had been a hawk, 
164 — The poor creature did not understand me at all, but 
thought I had asked who was his father ; but I took it up 
by another handle,^ and asked him who made the sea, 167 
— but he returned upon me repeating my words, 169 — 
when I had examined further into it,'' 172 — to see if he 
would discover any of the new thoughts which I suspected 
were in him,^ 174 — what kind of wood was fittest for it, 

^ In the New Atlantis, p. 151, we have the expression " that done 
they fell to music and dancing." In Hamlet, Act ii , so. 2, p. 244, 
we have : 

' ' He falls to such perusal of my face, 
As he would draw it." 

In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 212, we have : " Then Atheist fell into 
a very great laughter." While on p. 110 we have the expression 
" he fell from running to going ;" on p. 214, ' let us fall into good 
discourse ;" on p. 259, " the boys fell into tears ;" on p. 260, " she fell 
to sleeping again ;" on p. 263, " she fell a weeping," etc. 

2 This word " comely" was ever Bacon's word for this place. In 
his Essay entitled "Of Beauty," he says- "Virtue is like a rich 
stone, best plain set ; and surely virtue is best in a body that is 
comely, though not of delicate features : and that hath rather dig- 
nity of presence, than beauty of aspect." 

3 We here again have that distinctively used Baconian word 
"handle," considered in earlier pages. And in the Promus Notes 
we have : Promus, 856. (To look for a handle.) See p. 110. 

* This expression is distinctly Baconian. The use of the word 
" discover" in the next expression is a distinct earmark in these 
writings. Observe its use in Addison. 

* In Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 64. we have the expression 
" which I know to be in you." Bacon's critical and definite use of 
these two words "in" and " into" may be seen in the play of Julius 
Ccesar thus : 



BACONIAN" FRAMEWORK IX CRUSOE. 397 

176 — I brought it to pass, 177— when he saw me work 
my boat to and again in the sea, 177 — for I had been so 
good a husband^ of my rum, 175 — I began to abate my 
resohition, 179 — but did not immediately know which 
way to run, 181 — to victual our vessel, 190 — Ris caution 
was so seasonable,^ 190 — and caused them to do the like, 
190 — but it fell out to my mind another way/ 194 — What 
is your case? — Our case/ said he, sir, is too long to tell 
you, 169 — Look you, sir, said 1, 197 — and so put it wholly 
upon God's Providence to direct the shot, 197 — if any 
escaped we should be undone, 198— necessity legitimates 
my advice, 198 — they gav^e him all the protestations of 
their sincerity that could be desired, 198 — I told him this 
was my castle and my residence, but that I had a seat in 
the country, as most princes have, whither I could retire 
upon occasion, 199 — telling one another they were got 
into an enchanted island, 204 — but I was willing to take 
them at some advantage, 204 — which fell out jusb as we 
desired, 205 — I kept my&elf and one more out of sight for 
reasons of state, 206 — and would go with him all over the 
world, 207— a chain of wonders, 210— but that Providence 

" Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
As well as I do know your outward favor." 
And again : 

" Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, ' 
That you woukl have me seek into myself 
For that which is not in me ?" 

— Act i., so. 2, pp. 335, 336. 
^ Note this use of the word "husband" by Bacon in Sub. 596 
and 599 of his Natural History. And in another sense in his Essay 
entitled " Of Honor and Reputation" we have : " A man is an ill 
husband of his honor, that entereth into any action, the failing 
wherein mav disgrace him more than the carrying it through can 
honor him." 

^ Note this use of the word " seasonable" by Bacon, in the plays, 
and throughout. In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 183, we have : 

" Chr. Ah my brother, this is a seasonable sight :" etc. 

3 These words " fell out" were distinctly Baconian. Promus, 770. 
He casts another man's chance. (Aliena jacit.— Eras. Ad., 169. 
When things fall out otherwise than has been hoped.) 

^ As already stated, there is throughout these writings a permanent 
and kind of distinctive use of this word " case." Bacon says : " But 
after I had given him that thought, I turned it upon this, that 1 left 
his state and business in good case, whereof I gave him a particular 
account." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 163.) See p. 92, note 2. 



398 BzVCONIAN FRAME\YORK IN CRUSOE. 

])ad ensnared them in their own ways, 211 — I believe ti-^e 
sudden surprise of joy had overset nature and I had died 
upon the spot, 219 — he ordered me to be let blood, ^ ^19 — 
ai'ter which I had relief and grew well, 219 — and indeed 
was the originaP of the whole journey," 222. 

There seems as if some hitch or change of purpose here 
in the story, though continued by the same hand. 

" We all mended our pace, 225 — and will have satisfac- 
tion in point of honor, 225 — put us out of doubt,* 227— 
he had the heels of them, 230 — but the creature resolved 
us soon, 230 — some timber trees,^ 230— out of all govern- 
ment of ttiemselves, 246 — which had blown them quite out 
of their knowledge, 250 — and presently knew the very 
countenance of the place, 255 — we went on shore upon 
the tide of flood, 257 — to see how his passion run ont 
another way, 257 — he threw his arms abroad/ 258 — their 
behaviour was to the last degree obliging and courteous, 
259— the captain gave them good words, 261 — and beating 

^ We ha^e seen that this distinctive expression, "to be let blood," 
is Baconian. See p. 390, note 4. 

^ To this use of tlie word " original " we have already called 
attention. 

^ We tind Bacon not only using this distinctive expression, "out 
of doubt," but the expressions" out of levity," " out of question," 
"out of countenance," "out of zeal," "out of hope," etc. He 
says: "1 myself am out of doubt, that you have been miserably 
abused," etc. (Works, vol. iii., p. 21.) lii the Comedy of Errors, 
Act iv,, sc. 3, p. 196, we have : 

" Gour. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad. 
Else would he never so demean himself." 

In a Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv., sc. 2, p. 335, we have : 

" Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported." 

And in the plays we have " Out of his knowledge," " out of coun- 
tenance," "out of Christian burial," "out of sleep," " out of my 
promise," " out of mj^ purpose," " out of question," " out of hope," 
etc. 

■* Bacon was ever delinite in speaking of trees, mentioning them as 
fruit, shade, or timber trees. See Sub. 472 and 593 of his Natuial 
History. And in his Essay on " Sedition and Troubles" he says : " As 
for nobility in particular persons, it is a reverend thing to see an 
ancient castle or building not in decay ; or to see a fair timber tree 
sound and perfect." This distinction is observed throughout these 
writings. 

^ In the New Atlantis, p. 135, we have : " At his coming in he 
did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad." See also p. 133. 



BACONIAN FRAMEWORK IK CRUSOE. 399 

their brains' in considering their present circumstances, 
271 — as they expected it fell out, 272— he was as true to 
me as the very flesh upon my bones, 274 — they grew 
apace/ 275 — their hair-brained courage, 277— unless nar- 
rowly^ searched for, 278 —and could make nothing of it, 
278 — but my meaning is, 286 — there was the very face of 
industry and success upon all they did, 287 — but was an 
exceeding good fence, as well against heat, as against all 
sorts of vermin,* 303 —had we poor Spaniards been in 
your case, we should never have got half these things ^but 
of the ship,^ 307—1 desired him to abate his compliment, 
307 — which they were bred to, 310 — but let them see how 
nature made artificers at first, 312— what was afterwards 
done in this matter I will speak of by itself,^ 319 — Will 
Atkins for his own particular' added, 324— and bade him 

^ Bacon says : "I am now beating my brains (among many cases 
of his iMajesty's business) touching the redeeming the time in this 
business of cloth." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 73.) 

•■^ Bacon says: "The materials of that kingdom, which is trade 
and wealth, grew on apace.'' (Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., p. 310.) 

3 There will be found a kind of individualism in the use of this 
word "narrow" throughout. It is generally associated with some 
search into, and the expression comnionly is " look narrowly into." 
And see this identical use in The Pilgrim's Prouress, p. 217.^ And 
in Addison, vol. i.. p. 480, we have : " I searched narrowly into it, 
especially among those additions of sculpture made in the emperor's 
own age, to see if 1 could find any marks of the apparition that is 
said to have preceded the very victory which gave occasion to the 
triumphal arch." 

^ See Bacon's use of this word " fence" at p. 34. It is applied 
here as well against an influence as against distinctive bodies. And 
Bacon says : ^' So here is the case of Princes, that fear of law^ and 
punishment, which be the ordinance of God as a fence about their 
thrones, is thrown down and trampled under foot." (Bacon's Let- 
ters, vol. v., p. 1G4.) In Addison, vol. ii., p. 195, we have : " The 
crew of each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf and wood, at 
some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the 
inclemencies of the w^eather, which was severe beyond imagination." 

5 This use of the word " case" we have already called under re- 
view. And in the New Atlantis, p. 130, we have the expression 
" For our sick there were manv, and in very ill case." 

6 In the New Atlantis, p. 144, we have the expression " I shall 
now^ give you an account by itself." 

' Note this distinctive expression ' ' for his own particular. ' ' Bacon 
says : " But for my particular I do assure you I can hardly imagine 
a matter wherein you shall more effectually tie me unto you than in 
this." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 265.) And on p. 883 we have : 
" To conclude, let him be true to himself, and avoid all tedious 
reaches of state that are not merely pertinent to his [particular. " 



400 BACONIAN framework: in CRUSOE. 

consider of it,' 324—1 was a little backward to it, 325— 
be his own opinion what it would, 327—1 take this man 
to be a true penitent, 328 — and let us more narrowly and 
fully observe what was before us, 330 — instead of my 
going about to teach and instruct him, 334 — and mnke 
her rather contemn religion than receive it, 339—1 thought 
he had all the zeal, all the knowledge, all the sincerity of 
a Christian without the errors of a Roman Catholic ; and 
that I took him to be such a clergyman as the Roman 
bishops were, before the Church of Rome assumed spirit- 
ual sovereignty over the consciences of men,^ 339 — let the 
value be what it would, 341 — his discourse was very pret- 
tily delivered, 341 — I liked it the worse,' 350 — just as a 
hunting horn forms a tune with an open throat, 353 — 
about a stone's cast, 359 — being very ill wounded, 360 — 
we told thirty-two bodies, 362 — they gave me good words,^ 
363— yet to give them their due, 363 — he told me that he 
found that I brought that aifair continually upon the 
stage,' 370 — that I made unjust reflections upon it, 370— 
that was a heavy piece of news, 372 — there are no drones 
in the world but men, 374— we shall see so much further 
into it, 375 — provided he could, as he called it, find his 
account in it, 376 — in bringing me to come into it, 376 — 
but fear, that blind useless passion, worked another way 

While on p. 365 we have the expression " since it is mixed with my 
particuhir." Already have we mentioned the fact that a person by 
the name of Will Atkins was one of the witnesses to Lord Bacon's 
last will, 

' Bacon says : " Simonides being asked by Hiero ; WJiat he tlwuglit 
of God? asked a scv^en-nif^ht's time to consider of it." (Bacon's 
Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 158.) 

'•* To restore the Church to this ancient foundation, we take to 
have been Bacon's aim in religious matters. 

3 In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 287, we have: "I had thought 
they li\^ed upon crumbs of bread, or upon other such harmless 
matter : I like him worse than I did." This expression may be 
found used by Bacon, but I have mislaid m}^ reference. 

•* We find Bacon usiug the expressions "good words," "good 
ends," " good hours," " good dreams." " good hope," " good leave," 
etc. And in Measure for Measure, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 76, we have : 

" Imh. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her 
name." 

'' Bacon says : " For as his Majesty hath good experience that 
wdien his business comes upon the stage I carry it with strength and 
resolution, so in the proceedings I love to be wary and considerate." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 47.) 



BACONIATsT FRAMEWORK 12^ CRUSOE. 401 

and threw me into the Tapours, 393 — they would not give 
themselves leave, 393 — but let that be how it will, 393 — 
being a mixture of pomp and poverty, 403 — I took this 
time to think what pains men's pride put them to, 408 — 
as if we admired his pomp though we really pitied and 
contemned him, 404 — o^ which he had abundance to make 
ns merry with, 405 — as this is one of tlie singularities of 
China, so they may be allowed to excel in it, 408 — 
Senhor Inglese says he, you speak in colours.^ In colours ! 
said I ; what do you mean by that ? — Why you speak 
what looks white this way and black that way : gay one 
way and dull another. You tell him it is a good wall to 
keep out Tartars ; you tell me by that it is good for noth- 
ing but to keep out Tartars, 409 — and like true sheep keep 
together when they fly, 410 — we supposed this was to call 
their friends about them, and so it was, 410 — nor showing 
the face of any order at all, 410 — an ugly, ill-favored 
weapon, 412 — to give him his due, 413 — only if need 
were, 414 — a face of the Christian worship, 416 — winter 
began to come on apace, 428 — if the door of your liberty 
were opened, 431— to go back to the pomp of a court, 432 
— so that objection is out of doors, 432 — the liberty of 
my reason, 435." 

^ Let this subject of speaking in colors be called into relation with 
Bacon's sophisms and his article on the " Colors of Good and Evil." 



HAELEY AIN'D DEFOE. 



Less space has been devoted to this title and to tlie his- 
toric period following the reign of James the First than 
was at first intended, and for two reasons : first, because 
more of the space set in which to compass the work has 
been devoted to other subjects than was originally de- 
signed ; and second, because it seems less necessary than 
at first in setting forth our claims. And we may add, we 
but ring the bell that shall call better wits to the work. 

Charles the First came to the English throne upon the 
death of his father, March 27th, 1625, and met his ovvn 
fate at the block, January 30th, 1649, as we have seen. 
Upon his death the Rump Parliament declared it high 
treason to proclaim another king, and the House of Lords, 
having been declared useless and dangerous, was abolished. 
England thus became a republic, its executive authority 
being now vested in a commission of forty-one persons, of 
whom Bradshaw was President, and John Milton, the 
poet, at the age of forty-one, was Foreign Secretary. 
Charles a few months after his father's death became 
wedded to the Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, a 
daughter of Henry the Fourth of France. He left sur- 
viving him six children, two of whom, Charles and James, 
came to the throne, though their claims were suspended 
during the reign of The Commonwealth, and until May 8th, 
1660, when Charles was proclaimed King as Charles the 
Second, and thus was the monarchy restored. Upon his 
death, February 6th, 1685, he openly avowed his belief in 
the Catholic faith, and was immediately succeeded by his 
brother James, under the title of James the Second, who, 
openly espousing the Catholic faith in the face of literary 
methods now begun, brought on the Revolution of 1688, 
whereupon he was compelled to abdicate his throne. 



[ HARLEY AND DEFOE. , 403 

Earlier, and on December 5th, 1661, in the second year 
of the restoration of the monarchy, was born at London 
Robert Harlej, our noted mannscript collector. And 
Defoe is said to have been born during the same year. 
Harley became the founder of what is known as the Har- 
leian Manuscripts, the Harleian Miscellany, and the Har- 
leian Library, and ultimately became first Earl of Oxford. 
AYe have said a collector of manuscript, we think it would 
have been truer, in the main, to have said that he was a 
discloser or bringer to light of manuscripts. 

He was the eldest son of Sir Robert liarley, a wealthy 
landowner in Herefordshire. In religion he w^as a Non- 
conformist, in politics, in early life, a Whig. The Whigs 
were the party known as advocates of popular rights. 
The word " Whig" is said to have taken its origin from 
the initial letters of the club's motto from which the 
party sprung, it being " We hope in God." ^ 

The opposite party — the Tories — weie earnest supporters 
of royal and ecclesiastic authority, and the word first 
appears in English history in the year 1079, during the 
Parliamentary struggle to exclude James the Second, 
then Duke of York, from the line of succession. 

Those who opposed the bill were designated as Tories, 
while those who were its advocates were called Whigs. 
The mentioned religious and political opinions were by 
llarley's family connections early instilled into his mind. 
At the Revolution or abdication of James, in 1688, he and 
his father raised a troop of horse in support of the cause 
of William the Third, a son of William, Prince of Orange, 
by Mary, eldest daughter of Charles the First, and who 
had further connected himself with the Stuart line by 
wedding Mary, a daughter of James the Second. The 
Harlej s took possession of the city of Worcester in Will- 
iam's interest, and who with Mary, his wife, became now 
entitled to the crown by what is known as the Act of 
Settlement, passed January 22d, 1689. This interest in 
the new King brought Robert Harley to public notice, and 
in April, 1089, he was elected to Parliament. Later he 
became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from which, in 
1711, he was raised to the peerage. 

' Had tliose connected with this ckib a relation to the Defoe litera- 
ture and to the scheme yet to be unfolded ? Let this thought be at 
least taken with us as we go. 



404 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

He became early noted for his knowledge of Parliamen- 
tary proceedings, by devoting much attention and care to 
the subject, and from 1701 to 1705 he was Speaker of the 
House. Upon King William's death, February 21st, 1702, 
Anna, a second daughter of James the Second, came to 
the til rone. 

At about this time Harley began to manifest much un- 
certainty as to party affiliations, and later his actions are 
said to have been enigmatic. He was now, as we shall 
claim, studiously and cautiously playing his part in the 
great scheme later to be unfolded, and which the men- 
tioned change had in a measure made necessary. By 
some ho was even thought treacherous to the nation, and 
on February 11th, 1708, he was dismissed from his office 
as Secretary of State, which had, in 1704, been added to 
his position as Speaker of the House. During this time 
he had been the secret adviser of the Queen, who, by the 
now opposition awakened against him, was forced to 
accept his resiguation. He is said to have possessed great 
aptitude for intrigue, and now, and without scruple, to 
have used all his arts to hasten the downfall of his 
enemies. The danger to the national Church and the 
cost of the war with France are said to have been the 
weapons which he used to influence the popular mind. 
Through his cousin, Mrs. Masham, he had still the ear of 
the queen, and in May, 1711, he was restored to power as 
Baron Harley of Wigmore and Earl of Oxford and Morti- 
mer ; and before the month had ended he w^as created Lord 
Treasurer and in the following year he became Knight of 
the Garter. This sudden rise is said to have been due to 
a popular furor awakened in his interest by his having 
been, a month previous, and during poor health, stabbed 
in the breast with a penknife by a French refugee, then 
under examination in the Privy Council. 

Concerning Harley and this elevation, Lee, Defoe's most 
comprehensive biographer, vol. i., p. 178, says : " The 
high station to which Harley had raised himself, — the 
intrigues attributed to him, — the profession of Whig prin- 
ciples, while seeking alliance in office with high Tories, — 
the moderation of his measures, and the evident efforts to 
restrain his colleagues, — the secrecy he effected in all 
transactions of a public nature, so as to set conjecture at 
defiance, — all these constituted him a political enigma." 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 405 

And on p. 180, and which we would have the reader care- 
fully note, Lee gays : " We admire the discernment and 
tact of the Minister who could engage, in snpport of ^his 
policy, the pens of such men as Addison, Swift, Defoe, 
Steel, Arbnthnot, Prior, and Davenant ; though some of 
them were opposed to each other, personally and politi- 
cally." 

VVith Baconian manuscripts and with these aids to 
present the occasions for use did Harley play the gigantic 
game of chess which we are to unfold. 

By degrees, however, the confidence of the Queen was 
removed from Harley to Bolingbroke, and on July 27th, 
1714, Harley, after a violent altercation with the Queen, 
and which w^as thought to have hastened her death, sur- 
rendered his staff as Lord Treasurer ; and on August 1st, 
1714, the Stuart line of kings was by the death of the 
Queen brought to a close. 

In the beginning of her reign Anne had outwardly, at 
least, sided with the dominant party, the Whigs, to which 
her predecessor, King William, belonged. But in her 
heart she is said to have hafced them, thinking them re- 
publicans and enemies to the Church of England, to which 
she professed to be devotedly attached. Circumstances 
thus so arose with Harley as to induce him to act one way, 
while much of the Defoe literature lay quite in another ; 
and hence the need of aid in handling at least portions of 
it, and which w'as for a time, as we shall see, fathered 
upon no one. 

The Tory party, knowing the Queen's sympathies, took 
courage, and clergymen be.j^an to preach violent sermons 
against toleration and Dissenters or Nonconformists. 
The Queen was now by petition asked to support the m.ore 
intolerant party, and to rid herself of her Whig advisers. 
This coinciding with her feelings, she dismissed them all, 
her great general, Marlborough, excepted, whose wife had 
much influence with her. But Marlborough was charged 
wath peculation and with using his position to amass a 
private fortune ; and as the Tories in the Parliament 
which met in 1710 had the majority, the Queen was pre- 
vailed upon to deprive him of his office, whereupon the 
Whig influence at the court was at an end, and Lady 
Marlborough's place was transferred in the Queen's regard 
to Harley 's cousin, Mrs. Masham, before mentioned. 



406 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

The first important measure of Anne's reign went in 
the line of King William's policy, and was a declaration 
of war against France, the chief reason assigned being the 
necessity of restraining the power of France as dangerous 
to the safety of Europe. War against France was also 
declared by the Dutch and Germans. In 1702 the con- 
test began, and was carried forward for some ten years and 
until 1713, when the new Tory ministry resolved to bring it 
to a close, which w^as done in the noted treaty of Utrecht. 

The question of the union of the two countries of Eng- 
land and Scotland, which since the reign of James the 
First had been united but in their crowns, was early in 
this reign brought prominently before the people. The 
agitation of the question had indeed begun in the pre- 
vious reign. Now, as under the reign of James the First, 
it met with stout opposition from Scotland. But Anne 
favored the act, and it was finally passed in 1707, and as 
of May 1st. Scotland kept, however, her own laws and 
her own Presbyterian Church. 

Issues permitting the use of Baconian manuscripts by 
slight modifications may be here noted. 

The latter portion of this rp.ign was filled with Jacobite 
intrigues to secure the throne to the son of the Catholic 
])rince, the abdicated James the Second,, called the Pre- 
tender, and hence a struggle to continue the Stuart line. 
To his claims Anne was favorable, though she had early 
abandoned the cause of her father. See Britannica article 
as to Anne. Her character is said to have been weak 
though amiable, and her conduct to have been unduly 
influenced by female friends and favorites. 

Upon Anne's death the Wliig party was at once restored 
to power under George the First, who succeeded her, and 
who was the first of the Hanoverian line. Upon the 
Queen's death Harley retired to Herefordshire, but in a 
few months his impeachment was decided upon, and in 
July, 1715, he was committed to the Tower, where he was 
often visited by Defoe, and where he has been said to 
have composed Crusoe, or at least its first volume. See 
Lee, vol. i., p. 294. After nearly two years' imprisonment 
and on July 1st, 1717, he was discharged by the House of 
Lords, and allowed to resume his place among the peers, 
but he thereafter took little part in public affairs, and 
died, it is said, almost unnoticed. May 21st, 1724. The 



FARLEY AN"D DEFOE. 407 

noted manuscripts under liis control gave him, we think, 
his chief notoriety. 

Macauhiy in his History of England, voL iv., pp. 368- 
72, says : 

" The space which Eobert Harley fills in the history of 
three reigns, his elevation, his fall, the influence which, 
at a great crisis, he exercised on the politics of all Europe, 
the close intimacy in which he lived with some of the 
greatest wits and poets of his time, and the frequent re- 
currence of his name in the works of Swift, Pope, Arbutli- 
not, and Prior, must always make him an object of inter- 
est. Yet the man himself was of all men the least inter- 
esting. There is indeed a whimsical contrast between the 
very ordinary qualities of his mind and the very extraor- 
dinary vicissitudes of his fortune. 

" He was the heir of a Puritan family. His father. Sir 
Edward Harley, had been conspicuous among patriots of 
the Long Parliament, had commanded a regiment under 
Essex, had after the Restoration been an active opponent 
of the Court, had supported the Exclusion Bill, bad har- 
bored dissenting preachers, had frequented meeting houses, 
and had made himself so obnoxious to the ruling powers 
that, at the time of the Western Insurrection, he bad 
been placed under arrest, and his house had been searched 
for arms. When the Dutch army were marching from 
Torbay towards London, he and his eldest son Eobert 
declared for the Prince of Orange and a free Parliament, 
raised a large body of horse, took possession of Worcester, 
and evinced their zeal against Popery by publicly breaking 
to pieces, in the High Street of that city, a piece of sculp- 
ture which to rigid precisions seemed idolatrous. Soon 
after the Convention became a Parliament Robert Harley 
was sent up to Westminster as member for a Cornish 
borough. His conduct was such as might have been ex- 
pected from his birth and education. He was a Whig, 
and indeed an intolerant and vindictive Whig. JSTothing 
could satisfy him but a general proscription of the Tories. 
His name appears in the list of those members who voted 
for the Sacheverell clause ; and, at the general election 
which took place in the spring of 1690, the party Avhich 
he had persecuted made great exertions to keep him out 
of the House of Commons. A cry was raised that the 
Harleys were mortal enemies of the Church ; and this cry 



408 HAIILEY AND DEEOB. 

produced so much effect that it was with difficulty that 
any of them could obtain a seat. Such was the commence- 
ment of the public life of a man whose name, a quarter of 
a century later, was inseparably coupled with the High 
Church in the acclamations of Jacobite mobs. 

" Soon, however, it began to be observed that in every 
division Harley was in the company of those gentlemen 
who held liis political opinions in abhorrence : nor was 
this strange : for he affected the character of a Whig of 
the old pattern ; and before the Eevolution it had always 
been supposed that a Whig was a person who watched 
with jealousy every exertion of the prerogative, who was 
slow to loose the strings of the public purse, and who was 
extreme to mark the fault of the ministers of the Crown. 
Such a Whig Harley still professed to be. He did not 
admit that the recent change of dynasty had made any 
change in the duties of a representative of the people. 
The new government ought to be observed as suspiciously, 
checked as severely, and supplied as sjjaringly as the old 
one. Acting on these principles, he necessarily found 
himself acting with men whose principles were diametri- 
cally opposed to his. He liked to thwart the King : they 
liked to thwart the usurper : the consequence was that, 
whenever there was an opportunity for thwarting William, 
the Eoundheads stayed m the House or went into the 
lobby in company with the whole crowd of Cavaliers. 

" So on Harley acquired the authority of a leader among 
those with whom, notwithstanding wide differences of 
opinion, he ordinarily voted. His influence in Parlia- 
ment was indeed altogether out of proportion to his abil- 
ities. His intellect was both small and slow. He was 
unable to take a large view of any subject. He never 
acquired the art of expressing himself in public with 
fluency and perspicuity. To the end of his life he re- 
mained a tedious, hesitating and confused speaker. He 
had none of the external grace of an orator. His coun- 
tenance was heavy ; his figure mean and somewhat de- 
formed, and his gestures uncouth. Yet he was heard 
with respect. For, such as his mind was, it had been 
assiduously cultivated. His youth had been studious ; 
and to the last he continued to love books and the society 
of men of genius and learning. Indeed he aspired to the 
character of a wit and a poet, and occasionally employed 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 409 

hours which should have been very differently spent in 
composing verses more execrable than the bellman's. His 
time, however, was not always so absurdly wasted. He 
had that sort of industry and that sort of exactness 'which 
would have made him a respectable antiquary or King of 
Arms. His taste led him to plod among old records ; 
and in that age it was only by plodding among old records 
that any man could obtain any accurate and extensive 
knowledge of the law of Parliament Having few rivals 
in this laborious and unattractive pursuit, he soon began 
to be regarded as an oracle on questions of form and 
privilege. His moral character added not a little to his 
influence. He had indeed great vices ; but they were not 
of a scandalous kind. He was not to be corrupted by 
money. His private life was regular. No illicit amour 
was imputed to him even by satirists. Ga nbling he held 
in aversion ; and it was said that he never passed White's, 
then the favorite haunt of noble sharpers and dupes, 
without an exclamation of anger. His practice of fluster- 
ing himself daily with claret was hardly considered as a 
fault by his contemporaries. His knowledge, his gravity 
and his independent position gained for him the ear of 
the House ; and even his bad speaking was, in some sense, an 
advantage to him. For people are very loath to admit that 
the same man can unite very different kinds of excellence. 
It is soothing to envy to believe that what is splendid 
cannot be solid, that what is clear cannot be profound. 
Very slowlv was the public brought to acknowledge that 
Mansfield was a great jurist, and that Burke was a great 
master of political science. Montague was a brilliant 
rhetorician, and, therefore, th(ugh he had ten times 
Harlej's capacity for the driest parts of business, was 
represented by detractors as a superficial, prating pre- 
tender. But from the absence of show in Harley's dis- 
courses many people inferred that there must be much 
substance ; and he was pronounced to be a deep-read, 
dee]) thinking gentleman, not a fine talker, but fitter to 
direct affairs of state than all fine talkers in the world. 
This character he long supported with that cunning which 
is frequently found in company with ambitious and un- 
quiet mediocrity. He constantly had, even with his best 
friends, an air of mystery and reserve which seemed to 
indicate that he knew some monstrous secret, and that 



410 HARLEY AND DP:F0E. 

his mind was laboring Avitli some vast design. In this 
way he got and long kept a high reputation for wisdom. 
It was not till that re])utation had made him an Earl, a 
Knight of the Garter, Lord High Treasurer of England, 
and master of the fate of Europe, that his admirers began 
to find out that he was really a dull puzzle-headed man. 

" Soon after the general election of 1690, Harley, gen- 
erally voting with tlie Tories, began to turn Tory. The 
change was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, but 
was not the less real. He early began to hold the Tory 
doctrine that England ought to confine herself to a mari- 
time war. He early felt the true Tory antipathy to Dutch- 
men and to moneyed men. The antipathy to Dissenters, 
which was necessary to the completeness of the character, 
came much later. At length the transformation was com- 
plete ; and the old hunter of conventicles became an in- 
tolerable High Churchman. Yet to the last the traces of his 
early breeding would now and then show themselves ; and, 
while he acted after the fashion of Laud, he sometimes 
wrote in the style of Praise God Barebones." 

This description Macaulay follows with this foot-note : 
*' In a letter dated Sept. 12, 1709, a short time before he 
was brought into power on the shoulders of the High 
Church mob, he says : ' My soul has been among lions, 
even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, 
and their tongues sharp swords. But I learn how good 
it is to wait on the Lord, and to possess one's soul in 
peace.' The letter was to Carstairs. I doubt whether 
Harley would have canted thus if he had been writing to 
Atterbury." 

It was not until after Ilarley's death that many impor- 
tant Baconian manuscripts came to light. " Bacon's 
Notes on the State of Europe" did not appear until 1734, 
and they were first published in the supplement to 
Stephens' collection, concerning which Mr. Spedding 
says that Stephens, having died before its publication, he 
does not feel satisfied to ascribe it to Bacon. He in jus- 
tice, however, gives what Stephens says in the preface to 
the work, and from which we quote : " I laid aside all 
thoughts of troul)ling myself (U' others in the same kind 
until the Eight Honorable the Earl of Oxford was pleased 
to put into my hands some neglected manuscri))ts and 
loose papers, to see whether any of the Lord Bacon's 



IIARLEY AND DEFOE. 411 

compositions lay concealed there, that were fit to be pub- 
lished. Upon the perusal I found some of them written and 
others amended by his lordship's own hand, and believed 
that all of them had been in possession of Dr. Eawley, his 
lordship's chaplain and faithful editor of many of his 
works. I found that several of the treatises had been 
published by him, and that others, certainly genuine, 
which had not, were fit to be transcribed and so preserved, 
if not divulged." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 16.) Note 
also that Bacon's mentioned letter to Qneen Elizabeth, in 
1599, concerning his Tub did not come to light until after 
Harley's death, nor until 1729. 

Our position, then, is that at the opening of the Defoe 
period Baconian manuscripts, wherein was wrapped the 
most gigantic enterprise of modern times, had never as 
yet seen the light, and of which fact Harley was absolutely 
certain. Bacon, in fact, made his life but as the seed-bed 
in which to plant vast designs. 

The actor Defoe Avas twenty-six years of age when 
appeared the first published article with which his name 
has become associated.^ This paper was issued in 1687, 
the year prior to the mentioned abdication by James the 
Second ; and it is said to have had a tendency to set the 
Nonconformists or Dissenters at war with the English 
Church. It consisted of a double- coin mned quarto sheet, 
without date, title-page, signature, name of printer, or 
place of publication. James had at this time issued a 
declaration of religious tolerance, and with the view, it is 
said, of more easily overcoming Protestant resistance to 
Papal encroachments. The Pilgrim's Progress, said to be 
the work of a Nonconformist, appeared some earlier, 
thoQgh it is also said that it is not definitely known in 
what year it first appeared.^ The Puritan influences under 
which Lord Bacon was born and reared have already been 
recounted, as have his intentions to bring forth covertly 

* But in the Bntannica article on Defoe it is said that in the older 
catalogues of his works two pamphlets are attributed to him before 
the accession of James the Second, the first entitled " Specula ni 
Crapegowiiorum" (a satire on the clergy) and the other " A Treatise 
against the Turks." 

^ As early as 1667 William Penn, the Friend, the Quaker, had 
begun to put forth important papers in this direction, and he finally 
became the great equitable lawgiver to Pennsylvania and other of 
the American colonies. 



41^ HARLET AXP DEFOE. 

: - ' ._.-- ,^ ^f hi$ wt"^"' :- '^^^■'-^ ^ ;--'':: hiss life be 
-led to : :i and w;is 

^ ^- .; -— ^^ ... .:„T." ^r -V .•-.ivi not have 

been — b- _ : to bend or $hape its eonrs^. 

After h:? i„ ■ :iii iire ?hall claim, subtle 

meih^i? "n r:h thwaned end?, and as 

vr^U in :?r?, and w^lih the 

piTi:c-:2i;. _ . Pasrsn inllneoees, 

Vhieii h. - mannseripts may 

and line V eompo?v J! ^vfore 

^ veil s^ :e com: _ .^f 

ihcia :n : . lo breaV. : ?. 

Jiidr* - lies tbe First, was 

ibe 5^rsT ...:_- . .: ^ Eogland since the 

Gars of Marr TIId^)^.' His bi\>rber Charles, whom be 
snc-^e^^ed. iia-i manifested strong tendencies in this diree- 
lioii during his rei^D. and tMs greatly increased the dss- 
conTenrs cf ihe ' _ -. and n}X)n iiis death-bed he 
open! J aTowed li r . that faiih. 

Jain€^ WiZ^n -s iri^n bv _ j 7 ^^^^ ^^ roval 

sidie lo mass, rind fr-?i?- ihe : is intention to 

resioi>e ihe anritDi or ^? the Pari ia- 

mem an obsiacle, he .. - ^^ -i-^- l:eT^?r ce.Mtd 

asc^Ther. He incii prx»m<»ird ral•<.^:>s : , ^ . _ _-- . '-.?5 
iD ihe Sreiie, sjcht an amb^issa-ior lo L. ■ :, . - '..le 
oS:-:^ Simons of Oxford and Cambridge with those oi his 

^ Dad Bduc^^Mi make a guess as to Jmmes* is&oe by tlie means ex- 
pre^ed bjr Warwiek in tfie play of Henir IT., part \ Act liL, sa 2, 
p. STi. wiKie we liavtr : 

" Ww. Thete is a faiktorr in all n^r"? 1!^^?. 
Fiziuing the natore of tbe'tim^ dec>rv^ 
Tlw? whicfc oiKerr'd, a man mar pro; _ 
Wjui a near aim, oi tbe main cbsuoct o: -Ji:-g^> 
As Tc-i 30t eome to life ; wliidt in their seeds. 
Alia weak beginfin^, lie imre^ttred. 
Soeh thin^ i^come^the hatch and brood of time : 
And, by the nee^sary f onm of this. 
Kin; Richazd might create a perfect guess, 
Th^ great Xorthombeiland^ then &lse to him, 
WooM, of that £eed, grow to a greater f^seiiess : 
Whkh should not find a groond to root upon. 
Unless on yoo."' 

As to the word '* hatch," heie used, Bac(Mu in his History of Henry 
the Sei^mth. sar? : ^* In her witfidrawii^-chamher the coospiiacV 
King Bichaid the Thizd had been hatched." 



HARLZT ASD DEFOE. 413 

own faith. These acts called more sharply forth the Foe 
or Defoe liceratare, and which was designed to awaken 
the Xonconformists or stanch Protestant element into 
actiTiiT.^ 

From the publication of the mentioned article, in 1687, 
nntil Defoe's arrest, in 1T03, this literature, and large in 
amount, was fathered upon no one. HaviDg uj>on his 
arrest, and in order to regain his liberty, confessed him- 
self the author of a most subtle and adroitly written 
pamphlet, entitle*! "The Shortest Way with the Dissent- 
ers/' and aimed quite in reverse of it3^ title, his-relations 
to the intermediate writing soon became fixed. By the 
establishment in the public mind of a few of these arti- 
..es as his, denial was indeed useless, as they all possess 
that oneness as to style, Tocabulary, sentence framework, 
and rauge of knowledge as to leave little room for cavil. 
And we may thus see how, occasionally, cirenmscanc-es 
may so arrange themselves as to render a false position 
impregnable, or impossible to controvert or correct, as 
what is once formed in the popular mind is haid, even 
next to impassible to eradicate, as is well known: and 
hence thereafter but slight cloaking was necessary. 
And so Defoe, after his arrest and interview with 
Harley, soon to be considered, and which was doubtless 
his first connection with these writings, fell m and swam 
with the current, and donbtless found it largely for his 
interest to do so. From this moment he was a tool of 
Robert Harley, and so became one of the actors in the 
great scheme. 

In an article said to have been published by Defoe at 
the age of fifty- four, at which time his political career was 
thought to have ended, and entitled ** An Appeal to 
Honor and Justice," (was it his own composition?) and 
designed, it has been said, to aid Harley in his defence in 
1T15, at which time it appeared, he savs. or is made to 
say : 

*' I will make no reflections upon the treatment I met 
with from the people I suffered for, or how I was abau- 

' Earlier Penn had put forth anoaymouslv important paper? touch- 
ing the Church. As we have no hesiiancy in saying: That the " Max- 
ims ' atiribyted to him are a proiuct of Bacons pen, we would 
therefore have it investig^teii — our time not having as yet penniited 
us to do so — as to whether he was also an actor in the ?reat scheme. 



414 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

doned even in my sufferings at the same time that they 
acknowledged the service I had been to tlieir cause ; but 
I must mention it to let you know that while I lay friend- 
less and distressed in the prison of Newgate, my family 
ruined, and myself without hope of deliverance, a message 
was brought me from a person of Honour, who, till that 
time, 1 had never had the least acquaintance with, or 
knowledge of, other than by fame, or by sight, as we 
know men of quality by seeing them on public occasions. 
I gave no present answer to the person who brought it, 
having not duly weighed the import of the message. The 
message was by word of mouth thus : ' Pray, ask that 
gentleman what I can do for him ? ' But in return to 
this kind and getierous message, I immediately took my 
pen and ink, and wrote the story of the blind man in the 
Gospel, who followed our Saviour, and to whom our 
blessed Lord put the question, ' What wilt thou that I 
should do unto thee ? ' Who, as if he had made it strange 
that such a question should be asked, or as if he had said 
that I am blind, and yet ask me what thou shalt do for 
me ? My answer is plain in my misery, ' Lord, that I 
may receive my sight.' 

*^ I need not make the application. And from this 
time, although I lay four months in prison after this, and 
heard no more of it, yet from this time, as I learned after- 
wards, this noble person made it his business to have my 
case presented to her majesty and methods taken for my 
deliverance. 

" I mention this point because I am no more to forget 
the obligation upon me to the Queen, than to my first 
benefactor. 

" When her majesty came to have the truth of the case 
laid before her, I soon felt the effects of her royal goodness 
and compassion. And first, her majesty declared, that 
she left all that matter to a certain person, and. did not 
think he could have used me in such a manner. Probably 
these words may seem imaginary to some, and the speak- 
ing of them to me of no value, and so they would have 
been had they not been followed with further and more 
convincing proof of what they imported, which were 
these, that her majesty was pleased particularly to inquire 
into my circumstances and family, and by Lord Treasurer 
Godolphin to send a considerable supply to my wife and 



HARLEY AXD DEFOE. 415 

family, and to send to me the prison money to pay my 
fine and the expenses of my discharge. Whether this be 
a just foundation let my enemies judge. Here is the 
foundation on which I built my first sense of duty to her 
majesty's person, and the indelible bond of gratitude to 
my first benefactor. 

" Grratitnde and fidelity are inseparable from an honest 
man. But to be thus obliged by a stranger, by a man of 
quality and honor, and after that by the sovereign under 
whose administration I was suffering, let any one put iiim- 
self in my stead, and examine upon what principles I 
could ever act against either snch a Queen, or such a 
benefactor ; and what must my own heart reproach me 
with, what blushes must have covered my face when 1 had 
looked in, and called myself ungrateful to him that saved 
me thus from distresses, or her that fetched me out of the 
dungeon, and gave my family relief? Let any man who 
knows what principles are, what engagements of honor 
and gratitude are, make this case his own, and say what 
I should have done more or less than I have done. 

" I must go on a little with the detail of the obligation, 
and then I shall descend to relate what I have done and 
wiiat I have not done in the case. 

" Being delivered from the distresses I was in, her 
majesty, who was not satisfied to do me good by a single 
act of her bounty, had the goodness to think of taking 
me into her service, and I had the honor to be engaged in 
several honorable though secret services, by the inter- 
position of my first benefactor who then appeared as a 
member in the public administration, 

" I had the happiness to discharge myself in all these 
trusts so much to the satisfaction of those who employed 
me, though oftentimes with difficulty and danger, that 
my Lord Treasurer Godolphin, whose memory I have 
always honored, was pleased to continue his favor to me, 
and to do me all good offices with her majesty, even after 
an unhappy breach had separated him from my first bene- 
factor, the particulars of which may not be improper to 
relate ; and as it is not an injustice to any, so I hope it 
may not be offensive. 

'* When upon that fatal breach, the Secretary of State 
was dismissed from the service, I looked upon myself as 
lost ; it being a general rule in such cases, when a great 



416 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

official falls, that all who came in by his interest fall with 
him ; and resolving never to abandon the fortunes of the 
man to whom I owed so much of my own, I quitted the 
usual applications which I had made to my Lord Treas- 
urer." 

Here follows a statement showing that after his first 
benefactor, Harley — that is, the Earl of Oxford — had been 
removed from his office as Secretary of State, and which 
was in 1708, as we have seen, he still requested Defoe to 
continue his relations with the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, 
who thereafter a second time introduced him to the Queen, 
whereupon he was sent upon a secret employment into 
Scotland, and after showing his obligations in this he 
continues : 

" And this brings me to the affirmative, and inquire 
what the matters of fact are ; what I have done, or have 
not done, on account of these obligations which I am 
under. 

" It is a general suggestion, and is affirmed with such 
assurance, that they tell me it is in vain to contradict it, 
that I have been employed by the Earl of Oxford, late 
Lord Treasurer, in the late disputes about public affairs, 
to write for him, or, to put it into their own particulars, 
have written by his directions, taken the materials from 
him, been dictated to or instructed by him, or by other 
persons for him, by his order, and the like ; and that I 
have received a pension or salary, or payment from his 
Lordship for such services as these. It was impossible, 
since these things have been so confidently affirmed, but 
that, if I could put it into words that would more fully 
express the meaning of these people, I profess I would do 
it. One would think that some evidence might be pro- 
duced, some facts might appear, some one or other might 
be found that could s]ieak of certain knowledge. To say 
things have been carried too closely to be discovered, is 
saying nothing, for then they must own that it is not dis- 
covered ; and how then can they affirm it as they do, with 
such an assurance as nothing ought to be affirmed by 
honest men, unless they were able to prove it ? 

*' To speak then to the fact. Were the reproach upon 
me only in this particular, I would not mention it. I 
should not think it a reproach to be directed by a man to 
whom the Queen had at that time entrusted the adminis- 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 417 

tration of the government. But, as it is a reproach upon 
his Lordship, justice requires that I do right in this case. 
The thing is true or false. I would recommend it to those 
who would be called honest men, to consider but one 
thing, viz., what if it should not be true? Can they 
justify the injury done to that person, or to any person 
concerned ? If it cannot be proved, if no vestiges appear 
to ground it upon, how can they charge men upon rumors 
and reports, and join to run down men's characters by 
the stream clamor." (Defoe's Works, Talboy ed., vol. 
XX., pp. 11-18, of the mentioned article.) 

Here follow certain denials as to his having written for 
Harley, and which indeed he could truthfully make, as 
the writings, if our claims be true, were in fact not his, 
and though possibly, yet not probably, in any way under 
his Qontrol. This apology was probably prepared by 
Harley himself and from material to which we shall 
soon have occasion to allude, and either prior to or soon 
after he was sent to the Tower. 

This appeal ends abruptly by the following notice from 
the publisher : " While this was at tlie press, and the 
copy thus far published, the author was seized with a vio- 
lent fit of apoplexy, whereby he was disabled finishing 
what he designed in his further defence ; and continuing 
now for above six weeks in a weak and languishing con- 
dition, neither able to go on nor likely to recover, at least 
in any short time, his friends thought it not fit to delav 
the f)ublication of this any longer. If he recovers he may 
be able to finish what he begun ; if not, it is the opinion 
of most that know him that the treatment which he here 
complains of, and some others that he would have spoken 
of, have been the apparent cause of his disaster." 

It was never completed, and the far-off echo answers, 
Why? All of Defoe's biographers unite in saying that 
this paper contains our chief source of information touch- 
ing the man Defoe. Outside of its statements very, very 
little is known of him. And yet Lee, vol. i., p. 236, says : 
'^ The biographers of Defoe, not knowing at what time in 
1715 this book was published, have experienced great 
difficulty in explaining some of its contents consistently 
with the period at which other works by him were evi- 
dently composed between the death of the Queen and the 
publication of this * Appeal.' '' 
14 



418 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

Either to explain away this difficulty or otherwise^ it is 
stated that Defoe disclaimed its authorship. (See Lee, 
Yol. i., pp. 239-42. 

As we would say a word touching certain pamphlets 
mentioned in it, w^e from pp. 22-25 further quote : 

" While I speak of these things in this manner, I have 
infinite reproaches from clamorous pens, of being in the 
French interest, being hired and bribed to defend a bad 
peace, and the like, and most of this was upon the sup- 
position of my writing, or being the author of, abundance 
of pamphlets which came out every day, and which I had 
no hand in. And indeed, as I shall observe again by and 
by, this was one of the greatest pieces of injustice that 
could be done me, and which I labor still under without 
any redress ; that whenever any piece came out which is 
not liked, I am immediately charged with being the au- 
thor ; and very often the first knowledge I have had of a 
book being published has been from seeing myself abused 
for being the author of it, in some other pamphlet pub- 
lished in answer to it. 

" Feeling myself treated in this manner I declined 
writing at all, and for a great part of a year never set pen 
to paper except in the public paper called the Reviciv. 
After this I was long absent in the north of England ; and 
observing the insolency of the Jacobite party, and how 
they insinuated fine things into the heads of the common 
people, of the right and claim of the Pretender, and of the 
great thijjgs he would do for us if he were to come irr ; of 
his being to turn a Protestant, of his being- resolved, to 
maintain our liberties, support our friends, give liberty to 
dissenters, and the like ; and finding that the people 
began to be deluded, and that the Jacobites gained ground 
among them by these insinuations, I thought it the best 
service I could do the Protestant interest, and the best 
way to open people's eyes to the Protestant succession, if 
I took some course effectually to alarm the people with 
what they really ought to expect, if the Pretender should 
come to be King. And this made me set pen to paper 
again. 

" And this brings me to the affirmative part, or to what 
really I have done ; and in this, I am sorry to say, I have 
oire of the foulest, most unjust, and unchristian clamors 
to complain of, that any man has suffered, I believe, since 



HARLEY AXD DEFOE. 419 

the days of the t3U'anny of King James the Second. The 
fact is thus : 

•' In order to detect tlie influence of Jacobite emissaries, 
as above, the first thing I wrote was a small tract, called 
* A Seasonable Caution ; ' a book sincerely written to open 
the eyes of the poor, ignorant country people, and to warn 
them against the subtle insinuations of the emissaries of 
the Pretender ; and that it might be effectual to that pur- 
pose, I prevailed with several of my friends to give them 
awav among the poor people, all over England, especially 
in the north ; and several thousands were actually given 
away, the price being reduced so low, that the bare ex- 
pense of paper and press was only preserved, that every 
one might be convinced that nothing of gain was designed, 
but a sincere endeavor to do a public good, and assist to 
keep the people entirely in the interest of the Protestant 
succession. 

" Next to this, and with the same sincere design, I 
wrote two pamphlets, one entitled, ' What if the Pretender 
Should Come ? ' the other, ' Reasons against the Succession 
of the House of Hanover.' 

" Nothing can be more plain than that the titles of 
these books w^ere amusements, in order to put the books 
into the hands of those people whom the Jacobites had 
deluded, and to bring them to be read by them.' 

" Previous to what I shall further say of these books, 
I must observe that all these books met with so general a 
reception and approbation among those who were most 
sincere for the Protestant succession, that they sent them 
all over the kingdom, and recommended them to the 
people as excellent and useful pieces ; insomuch that about 
seven editions of them were printed, and they were printed 
in other places. And I do protest, had his present maj- 
esty, then elector of Hanover, given me a thousand pounds 
to have written for the interest of his succession, and to 
expose and render the interest of the Pretender odious and 
ridiculous, I could have done nothing more effectual to 
these purposes than these books were. 

'* And that I may make my worst enemies, to whom 
this is a fair appeal, judges of this, I must take leave, by 
and by, to repeat some of the expressions in these books, 

^ The procurement of instruction by means of device, in these 
writings, has already been touched upon. And see p. 68. 



420 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

which were direct and need no explanation, which I think 
no man that was in the' interest of tne Pretender, nay^, 
which no man but one who was entirely in the interest of 
the Hanover succession could write. 

'' Nothing can be severer in the fate of a man than to 
act so between two parties, that both sides shall be pro- 
yoked against him. It is certain, that Jacobites cursed 
those tracts and the author, and when they came to read 
them, being deceived by their titles according to the de- 
sign, they threw them by with tlie greatest indignation 
imaginable. Had the Pretender ever come to the throne, 
I could have expected nothing but death, and all the 
ignominy and reproach that the most inveterate enemy of 
his person and claim could be supposed to suffer." 

The pamphlets here mentioned were issued near the 
close of the reign of Queen Anne. Her half brother, the 
son of the abdicated James the Second, by the name of 
James the Third, was then the Pretender to the English 
throne. Defoe for the last of the mentioned articles is 
said to have been again arrested in 1713. The first of these 
articles was issued in 1712, together with another entitled 
" Hannibal at the Gates ; or. The Progress of Jacobitism 
with the Present Danger of the Pretender." The other 
article, a sharp satire, likewise appeared in 1713, as did an- 
other article mentioned in this Appeal entitled " What 
if the Queen Should Die?" 

The articles mentioned in the Appeal we have somewhat 
examined, and regard them as Baconian pieces, though 
garbled. The one last mentioned we would call into rela- 
tion with two short fragments in Bacon's attributed writ- 
ings, entitled " The First Copy of My Discourse Touching 
the Safety of the Queen's Person" and "The Fragment 
of a Discourse Touching Intelligence and the Safety of 
the Queen's Person." (Works, vol. ii., p. 214.) These 
articles bear a relation to the already quoted sonnets begin- 
ning at p. 150, touching the subject of a successor to the 
English throne. The article entitled " What if the Queen 
Should Die ?" bears earmarks of having been written con- 
cerning the days of Elizabeth, we think. The Queen of 
Scots was at that time the Pretender. The article entitled 
*' Hannibal at the Gates" we have not seen. This may 
have been written in furtherance of Bacon's later design, 
already alluded to. Portions of this literature was truly 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 421 

a Foe to Papal encroachments. Some parts of the men- 
tioned Appeal, though not much of that quoted, seem as 
if chopped and made up from material penned by Lord 
Bacon during his troubles. These manuscripts were 
doubtless at times so chopped — that is, portions of dif- 
ferent manuscripts and different portions of the same man- 
uscript interlaced. In closing the Bevieiu, in 1712, with a 
preface, we have more, we think, of the material of this 
Appeal in these words : 

" First, I look in, and upon the narrowest Search I can 
make of my thoughts, desires, and designs, I find a clear 
untainted Principle, and consequently, an entire calm^ of 
Conscience, founded upon the satisfying Sense, that I 
neither am touched with Bribes," etc. 

'' Next, I look up, and without examining into His 
AYays, the Sovereignty of whose Providence I adore, I sub- 
mit with an entire Resignation to whatever happens to 
me, as being by the immediate direction of that Goodness, 
and for such wise and glorious Ends as, however I may not 
yet see through, will at last issue in good, even to me ; 
fully depending, that 1 shall yet be delivered from the 
power of Slander and Eeproach, and the Sincerity of my 
Conduct be yet cleared up to the World : and if not, Te 
Detim Laudamus.''^ (Lee, vol. i., p. 201.) 

To the singular capitalization of words here used we 
shall later have occasion to refer. To those familiar with 
Bacon's language during his troubles these words will 
seem familiar. Note the Baconian expressions, " narrow- 
est search," "calm of conscience," "satisfying sense," 
"direction of that goodness," etc. Before his already 
mentioned interview with the King he was known to have 
been preparing vigorously for his defence, and later to have 
struggled to clear his record. By erasing slightly here, and 
adding there, a manuscript may, with little trouble and 
without serious alteration of style, be made to tell a tale 
other than as originally designed, as is well known ; and 
especially if there be chopping, and more especially if 
done by one who studies that style with a view to such 
change. 

As to how far Harley was faithful to his own, and how 
far to Bacon's ends, is a matter to be considered by itself. 

' Promus, 1435. A bonance. (A caulme.) 



422 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

We now call the foregoing expression, Te Deiim Lauda- 
mus, into direct relation with the same expression by 
Bacon upon the opening page of his History of Henry the 
Seventh, and which was the first product of his pen subse- 
cpient to his fall. He says : " The King immediately 
after the rictory, as one that had been bred under a devout 
mother, and was in his nature a great observer of religious 
forms, caused Te deum laudmnus to be solemnly sung in 
the presence of the whole army upon the place, and was 
himself with general applause and great cries of joy, in a 
kind of militar election or recognition, saluted King."* 
(Bacon's Literary Works, vol. i., p. 27.) 

In the Serious Reflections of Crusoe, p. 48, we have : 
'' When I came there it was my fate to be placed between 
the seats where the man of God performed the service of 
his praise, and sang out the anthems and the Te Deivm, 
which celebrated the religious triumph of the day." 

Having premised thus much concerning the man Daniel 
Foe, or Defoe, as in literature he has come to be called, 
we next introduce him to the reader by the only extant 
description of his person, and which is in the words of 
the notice issued for his apprehension, January 10th, 1703, 
in consequence of being the alleged author of the already 
mentioned pamphlet entitled " The Shortest Way with 
the Dissenters," and which is in these words : 

" He is a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, 
of a brown complexion and dark brown colored hair, but 
wears a wig ; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray eyes, and 
a large mole near his mouth : was born in London, and for 
many years was a hose-factor, in Freeman's Yard in Corn- 
hill ; and now is owner of the brick and pantile works, 
near Tilbury Fort, in Essex." See vol. i., p. 67. 

Daniel Foe is said to have been born at London, in the 
parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in 1661, but upon what 
l^articular date his biographers have not been able to make 
certain, nor is the precise location of his place of birth 
more certain than as stated. The circumstances of his 

* In Heury V., Act iv., sc. 8, p. 570, we have : 
" King. Do we all holy rites : 
Let there be sung 2so)i nobis, and Te Deum. 
Tlie dead with charity inclos'd in clay, 
We'll then to Calais ; and to England then ; 
Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men." 



HA RLE Y AKD DEFOE. 423 

death are likewise involved in uncertainty, as indeed are 
most of those of his life, except so far as they are inferen- 
tially derived from the writings of which he is claimed to 
be the author. His most extensive biographer, Lee, in 
his work entitled " Life and Newly Discovered Writings 
of Daniel Defoe," vol. i., p. 4, says of him : 

" So far as celebrity is concerned, he may be considered 
the first and last of his family. He had so much to tell 
the world in order to make men wiser and better, that 
he did not even take time to write down anything as 
to the genealogy of his excellent mother ; whether he ever 
had a sister or brother ; or, to tell us whose daughters 
himself successively married. In a letter to Lord Hali- 
fax, dated 1705, he speaks of a brother, without mention- 
ing his name ; but as such brother was stated to be in- 
capable of carrying a message, he was, perhaps, only a 
brother-in-law." 

While our investigation must necessarily detract from 
the laurels of Defoe, it will still be pursued with no vin- 
dictive spirit, and he shall receive at our hands as fair a 
presentation as to the accredited facts of his history as he 
has commonly received from liis biographers ; and it will 
be for the reader to say what degree of reliance is to be 
placed upon them, or how far they are independent of the 
writings themselves. Such opinion, however, must of 
necessity come largely by independent perusal of the works 
themselves. 

His name, except in the sense that it was assumed, was 
not his own. In the Chamberlain's Book it is entered as 
Daniel Foe. When about forty years of age, in other 
words, from the time of his mentioned arrest, he is found 
changing his name from Foe into Defoe, thongh Lee later 
finds him subscribing himself as D. Foe, D. F., D. D. F., 
and D. Foe in alternation with Daniel Defoe, and which 
last has become his accepted literary name. 

Concerning his surname, Lee, vol. i., p. 5, says : '' He 
was called De Foe several years before the death of liis 
venerable father, who never used any other name but that 
of Foe. The son was not a man to be ashamed of the 
surname of his living parent ; nor the True-born English- 
man likely to have been actuated by the vanity of assuming 
a Norman prefix. His practice disproves the assertion, 
and shows rather that the form of his signature was a 



424 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

matter of personal indifference, which continued to the 
end of his life. It is true that he used the surname of 
De Foe, but I am inclined to think it began accidentally, 
or was adopted for convenience, about the year 1703, to 
distinguish him from his father. The latter, from his age 
and experience, and the former from his commanding 
ability, were both then influential members of the Dis- 
senting interest in the city. They would respectively be 
spoken of and addressed, orally, as Mr. Foe and Mr. D. 
Foe. The name as spoken, would in writing become Mr. 
De Foe, and thus what originated in accident, might be 
used for convenience, and become more or less fixed and 
settled by time. This simple explanation is favored by 
the following proofs of Defoe's indifference in the matter. 
His initials and name appear in various forms in his works, 
subscribed to dedications, prefaces, etc., and this may be 
presumed to have been done by himself. . Before 1703 
I find only D. F. In this year Mr. De Foe and Daniel 
De Foe. In the following year D. D. F. ; De Foe, and 
Daniel de Foe. In 1705 D. F. and three autograph let- 
ters, all addressed within a few months to the Earl of 
Halifax, are successivelv signed D. Foe, De Foe, and 
Daniel De Foe. In 1706'D. F. ; D. Foe ; De Foe ; Daniel 
De Foe. In 1709 D. F.; De Foe; and Daniel Defoe. 
In 1710 a letter to Dyer is signed De Foe. Two autograph 
signatures by him, in 1723 and 1727, and two of the same 
dates by his daughter Hannah, are Daniel De Foe, and 
Hannah De Foe. Yet in 1729 a letter to his printer is 
signed De Foe ; and one to his son-in-law, in 1730, D. F." 

Unless there be method m this madness, what kind of 
business is this, please, for talent able to produce the body 
of the Defoe literature ? But this is not the only instance 
of like methods falling within the scope of our inquiry. 

Hudson, as to Shakespeare, vol. xi., p. 171, says : 
*' Much discussion has been had of late as to the right 
way of spelling the Poet's name. The few autographs of 
his tiiat are extant do not enable us to decide precisely 
how he wrote his name, or rather they show that he had 
no one constant way of writing it. But the Venus and 
Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were unquestionably 
published by his authority and under his superintendence, 
and in the dedication of both these poems the name is 
printed ' Shakespeare.' The same is the case in all the 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 425 

quarto issues of his plays, where the author's name is 
given, with the single exception of Love's Labour's Lost, 
which has it ' Shakespere ;' and also in the original folio. 
And in much the greater number of these instances the 
name is printed with a hvpen, thus, ' Shake-speare,' ^ as 
if on purpose that there might be no mistaking it. All 
which, surely, is, or ought to be, decisive as to how the 
poet willed his name to be spelled in print. And so we 
have uniformly printed it throughout this edition, except 
where we made a point to quote with literal exactness." 

But why these flimsy and sophistic attempts to do for 
an author that which he has not manifested the slightest 
concern to do for himself, unless, indeed, these be subtle 
hints whereby to arrest attention ? Can like instances be 
found in the history of literature ? But these covers to 
conceal authorship cannot longer be thus made to befog 
the world, nor should they. The foregoing efforts to ex- 
phiin but furnish forth to careful thought active material 
for discredit. 

Let the reader himself think for a moment of thus 
writing his own name through a series of years, or of thus 
bungling a hyphen between portions of his name for clear- 
ness' sake, and he is in a true mental frame for digesting 
these sophistic explanations. 

As the substance icself of the Divine Eecords must give 
them credence, so, inquiry initiated, substance must and 
will determine the true authorship of these writings. 

James Foe, the father of Daniel, is said to have resided 
at London and to have been engaged in business as a 
butcher. Being a Dissenter, he sent Daniel, at the age of 
fourteen, to an academy at Stoke Newington, where many 
of the Nonconformists of his times are said io have been 
educated. We next, at the age of nineteen, find him 
settled in the office of a hose factor. How much learning 
he possessed at this time is not, of course, known, though 
it is said he was in later years much taunted for want 
of it. 

In 1683 fears were again seriously entertained in Eng- 
land touching the security of the Keformed faith, and so 

^ This is in full accord with our claim. Bacon in these writings 
shook a spear at the ruling foibles of men. This mark was but the 
laying of a straw to dillerentiate the woid, and as we have done in 
our preface to this work. Pronius, 108. Best to lay a straw here. 



426 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

an insurrection arose in which Defoe is said to have been 
interested, and which favored the claims to the crown of 
the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles the 
Second, in preference to those of his brother, James the 
Second, and this by reason of James' Catholic and Mon- 
moutli's Protestant views. When Monmouth landed, in 
1685, Defoe is said to have joined his forces. The project 
failed, and he escaped unrecognized to London, where, in 
Freeman's Court, in Cornhill, he set up in business as a 
wholesale hosier. But at the time of the abdication, in 
1688, at the age of twenty-seven, we find him engaged in 
the business of a liveryman in London. Concerning this 
and his already mentioned anonymous article put forth in 
1687, Lee, vol. i., p. 21, says : 

''After the danger Defoe had incurred in writing and 
publishing his Tract against the King's Declaration, he 
must have felt chagrined that his efforts to serve the Dis- 
senters had only given great offence to many of his friends. 
He appears, upon this, to have turned his attention more 
fully to his commercial duties ; and thinking it expedient 
to unite himself closely with his fellow-citizens, was ad- 
mitted a liveryman of the City of London, on the 26th of 
Jan., 1688, having claimed his freedom by birth. In the 
Chamberlain's Book his name was written Daniel Foe." 

In the Britannica article on Defoe it is said : " His 
business operations at this period appear to have been 
extensive and various. He would seem both now and 
later to have been a sort of commission merchant, especially 
in Spanish and Portuguese goods, and at some time or other 
he visited Spain on business. Later we hear him spoken 
of as ' a civet-cat merchant,' but as he can hardly have 
kept a menagerie of these animals, it is odd that no one 
has supposed that the civet-cat was the sign of his place of 
business (it was a very usual one) rather than the staple 
of his trade." 

Yet see in the following quotations what Lee says of his 
attainments. 

In vol. i., p. 10, he says : " As to the scholastic attain- 
ments of Defoe we are not left in ignorance. He was able 
to read the Greek classics, and had not only mastered the 
most difficult Latin authors, but himself produced Latin 
compositions for the press ; he translated and spoke Span- 
ish, Italian, and French, the latter fluently, and had some 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 42? 

knowledge of Dutch. Probably no man ever better nnder- 
stood how to use a plain, racy, thorough English style of 
language. His writings evince his great logical proficiency. 
Under the direction of his tutors, he went through a com- 
plete course of theology, in which he acquired a proficiency 
that enabled him to cope with the most acute writers of 
that disputatious age. He had sufficient knowledge of 
mathematics for the acquirement of astronomy ; and as to 
geograj^hy he appears to have been acquainted with every 
known spot of the earth, its physical character, natural 
and artificial productions, and the whole trade and com- 
merce of the world. History, ancient and modern, eccle- 
siastical and civil, appears to have been at his fingers* 
ends. No man of his time better understood the consti- 
tution of his country, and he was very far in advance of 
his age in many branches of political and social science. 
So wide a range of learning has probably been attained by 
few, under the disadvantages he has himself pointed out ; 
but it must be remembered that Defoe was no ordinary 
student." 

On p. 22 of his introduction Lee says : " I am bound to 
go further, and state, that from first to last Defoe was a 
sincere, consistent upholder of the Church of England, its 
Establishment and its Doctrines though a Dissenter from 
its form of worship. Declarations of his moderate prin- 
ciples in this respect are neither few, nor far between ; 
they extend over the whole of his literary life. One of 
his favorite positions, for which he was always ready to 
contend, was, ' The Church of England, as by law estab- 
lished, is the Great Bulwark of the Protestant faith ;' and 
to the question, What is your religion ? his answer is 
' A catholic Christian.' It the numerous passages in sup- 
port of the Church of England were unjustly isolated from 
his general works, the world might conclude that he was 
a Churchman, and no Dissenter.^ 

Mr. Wilson has quoted extensively from Defoe's works, 
but the large-hearted Catholicity of his religious character 
and principles is not made apparent ; and I regret to add 
that the systematic suppression of Defoe's real opinions on 
such topics, is even more to be regretted than the active 
efforts to make him appear a Sectarian bigot." 

* Please see AddisoD, vol. ill., pp. 295-99 on tlie Church of 
England. 



428 HARLEY AN"D DEFOE. 

On p. 438 he sa^^s : " His mind seems to grasp, and 
apply to his purpose, all parts of the globe, and especially 
those least generally known in his time. In suggesting 
new openings for the manufacturers of his own country, 
he speaks with the authority of an intimate personal ac- 
quaintance, as to the geography of remote nations ; the 
people, their condition, the productions they could supply 
us with, and the nature of the exports that would supply 
the wants and promote the happiness of each other ; and 
at the same time add to the industry, the wealth, and the 
influence of England.' The English Merchant was a char- 
acter upon whom Defoe delighted to dwelP — he gloried in 
the national Avealth, and in those whose enterprise brouglit 
that wealth, in converging streams from distant lands. He 
rose in dignity when the names of successful merchants 
were enrolled among the ancient nobility ; and he shared 
the pride of a people whose trade placed them in a con- 
dition superior to that of all other nations." 

Note that in 1623 Bacon said that if he should there- 
after write upon political issues the work would probably 
be posthumous or abortive. 

On p. 214, as to trade, Lee says : " Our author was 
nearly a century and a half in advance of general public 
opinion on these topics. He believed that international 
reduction and abolition of duties, would increase trade, 
cheapen commodities, promote national and individual 
prosperity, and become the most powerful guarantee of a 

^ At the end of Book 1 of the De Augmentis Bacon says : "If, 
therefore, the invention of a ship was thought so noble, which carries 
commodities from place to place and consociateth the remotest regions 
in participation of tlieir fruits, how much more are letters to be 
valued, wliich, like sliips, pass through the vast ocean of time, and 
convey knowledge and inventions to the remotest ages." 

2 In his essay entitled " Of Empire," Bacon, as to the merchants of 
a prince, says : " For their merchants ; they are vena parte ; and if 
tliey flourish not, a kingdom may have good limbs, but will have 
empty veins, and flourisli little." And he opens a speech in 1601 in 
these words : " I am, Mr. Speaker, to tender to this House the fruit 
of the Committee's labor, which tends to the comfort of the stomach 
of this realm ; I mean the merchant ; which if it quail or fall into a 
consumption, the State cannot clioose but shortly be sick of that 
disease." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 34.) And in vol. iii. he says 
they are " Neptune's almsmen, and fortune's adventurers." Did it 
not too much cumber our work we would call Bacon into direct 
relation upon all of these points. His views upon colonization we 
have already called under review. 



IIARLKY AND DEFOE. 429 

lasting peace. To use the modern phrase, Defoe was the 
first and foremost advocate of ' Free Trade.' " 

On p. 33 4 he says: "Readers of Defoe's imaginary 
voyages and travels have wondered how he obtained his 
great knowledge of geography ; and no less, how he be- 
came so intimately acquainted with the peculiarities and 
habits of sailors, and all the technicalities of a sea-faring 
life. When personating a sailor, and describing the work- 
ing of a ship, in any part of the world, he appears as 
much in his proper element, as wiien discoursing on in- 
ternal trade, or discussing the home politics of the day. 
No material inaccuracy, in these respects, has ever been 
detected in his writings. He confessed to having all the 
world at his fingers' ends, but how he became so learned 
is left to conjecture." ^ 

On p. 415 he says : ** Although Defoe had contributed 
so much to the literature of his country, and would, as a 
biblical student, feel interested in any inquiry into the 
early history of letters, we should scarcely have expected 
him to take the subject into his own hands. As if to 
show, however, that the whole range of human knowledge 
was within liis grasp, he did so, in a work to which he had 
already alluded, in the last noticed pamphlet. The title 
is, ' An Essay upon Literature ; or, an Enquiry into the 
Antiquity and Original of Letters ; Proving, That the two 
Tables, written by the Finger of God in Mount Sinai, was 
the first Writing in the World ; and that all other Alpha- 
bets derive from the Hebrew.* With a Short View of the 

^ Again we would call attention to the fact that there is a kind of 
nautical basis to all of Bacon's attributed writings. 

'^ See this view, taken in ch. 1 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis, and 
which concerns the " Handing on of tlie Lamp, or Method of Delivery 
to Posterity," and where Plato's views upon the subject are called in 
question. Note also what is said touching a philosophic graniuiar, 
and which is set down as wanting. Bacon here also says : " And is it 
not a fact worthy of observation (though it may be a little shock to 
the spirits of us"^ moderns) that the ancient languages were full of 
declensions, cases, conjugations, tenses, and the like, while the 
modern are nearly stripped of them, and perform most of their work 
lazily by prepositions and verbs auxiliary ? Surely a man may 
easily conjecture (how well soever we think of ourselves) that the 
wits of the early ages were much acuter and subtler than our own. 
There are numberless observations of this kind, enough to fill a good 
volume. " And see our quotation at p. 73. As to Hebrew idioms, see 
Addison, vol. iii., pp. 382-85. Promus, 516. Tragedies and com- 
edies are made of one alphabet. 



430 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

Methods made use of by the Ancients, to supply the want 
of Letters before, and improve the use of them, after they 
were known.' The subject was one little known to the 
general public, and a great curiosity to the learned. Ifc 
involved important consequences ; and, as there then ex- 
isted few books on the subject, and scarcely any in the 
English language, mnch research and deep thought were 
required. Our author succeeded in producing a work, 
original in its ])lan, — excellent in its keeping the leading 
idea, through the successive parts, before the minds of his 
readers ; and containing much instruction within a narrow 
compass. The book exhibits the learning of our author 
in the dead languages, yet his peculiar talent has made it 
as entertaining as it is instructive. Succeeding writers 
have more amply discussed the subject, but this little vol- 
ume is well worthy of being reprinted. It is now among 
the rarest of his works." 

And yet we are asked to believe these to be the attainments 
of one immersed in civil affairs, as a hose-factor, a livery- 
man, a civet-cat merchant, and other employments, as we 
shall see. 

Lee in the introduction to vol. ii. of his work, p. 7, as to 
certain language characteristics of Defoe, says : " These 
Essays cannot be read without observation of the Author's 
large acquaintance with Holy Scripture. His general 
style, but especially his grave colloquial compositions, owe 
much of their charm to this. I have to notice, however, 
that modern refinement has consigned to the class of the 
indelicate certain words in common use when the Bible 
was -translated ; and which still continued to be used, 
without exciting coarse or impure ideas, when Defoe wrote. 
If such words be occasionally found in this collection, let 
me deprecate any offence, for the reason I have stated ; 
also from a consideration of the purity of the Author's 
life and character, the sincerity of his good intentions, 
and the true morality inculcated." 

On p. 338, vol. i., he saj^s : *' I have now to explain 
briefly an important point, that has hitherto perplexed 
not only all biographers of Defoe, but also many of his 
readers ; namely, the motives and circumstances that 
induced him, at sixty years of age, to commence writing a 
series of volumes professedly recording the lives of notori- 
ous criminals, whose manv offences and immoralities had 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 431 

subjected them to the penalties of the laws they had 
broken. His personal honesty and integrity, the purity 
of his life, nay even his high religious character, has never 
been called in question by any well-informed writer, and 
is attested by the excellence of his numerous moral works ; 
— composed, not only previously, but interposed between, 
and continued after, the publication of those which are 
felt to be offensive to modern notions of delicacy. It has 
also excited inquiry how he became acquainted with the 
class of persons from whom alone he could have obtained 
such an intim^ate knowledge of their habits, manners, and 
associations ; not only at home, — but in the Plantations 
to which they were transported, — as was requisite for the 
production of these works. As to the latter of these in- 
quiries, the only answer has been based on the horrible 
manner in which prisoners were confined together in New- 
gate, almost without discrimination of offence, or sex." 

The providing for this class of persons lay at the very 
basis of Bacon's " Solomon's House," as will appear in his 
already quoted speech at p. 18, touching Drowned Mineral 
Works. And again are we reminded of our Head-light, 
" For I have taken all knowledge to be my providence." 
But on p. 24 Lee says : '^ To return to Defoe's business 
operations. There is no possibility of fixing accurate 
dates to the incidental notices collected through the works 
of an author who avoids as much as possible obtruding his 
private affairs upon the public. It may, however, serve 
as a guide' that the pecuniary difficulties which ended in 
his becoming insolvent began about the year 1692." 

Defoe's failure in 1692 appears to be the next that is 
definitely known of him following the year 1688. He is now 
reported to have failed for £17,000, but what his particular 
business was at the time does nob definitely appear. He 
is said to have absconded until a compromise was effected 
with his creditors. From 1694 to 1699 he is said to have 
been by King William's appointment an accountant of the 
glass tax. It is also said that in 1694 he became secretary 
and ultimately the owner of the brick and pantile works at 
Tilbury, referred to in the mentioned notice issued for his 
arrest in 1703. The works at Tilbury are said to have 
prospered until that event, but soon after Defoe is re- 
ported to have again failed for £3000. These failures 
served later as the occasion for various articles concerning 



432 HAKLEY AND DEFOE. 

the laws of bankruptcy and insolvent debtors. Bacon's 
struggles with his creditors, both early and late in life, 
have in a measnre been touched upon. 

At the time of Defoe's arrest, in 1703, there had ap- 
peared a large amount of this masterly literary work, 
though fathered upon no one. In other words, it was 
put forth anonymously. In 1G91 appeared the pamphlet 
entitled *' A New Discovery of an Old Intrigue ;" in 
,1694, '* The Englishman's Choice and True Interest ;" in 
1697, ** Some Reflections on a Pamphlet Lately Published 
Entitled an Argument Showing that a Standing Army is 
Inconsistent with a Free Government and Absolutely De- 
structive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy ;" 
in 1698, " An Inquiry into Occasional Conformity," " An 
Argument Showing that a Standing Army with Consent 
of Parliament is not Inconsistent with a Free Govern- 
ment," and a treatise, consisting of 350 pages, entitled 
''An Essay on Projects;"' two days later appeared an 
Essay on the Reformation of Manners, under the title 
*' The Poor Man's Plea in Relation to All the Proceedings, 
Declarations, Acts of Parliament, etc., which Have Been 
or Shall Be Made and Published for a Reformation of 
Manners, and Suppressing Immorality in the Nation ;" " 
in 1700, ''The Two Great Questions Considered— 1. What 
the French King will Do with Respect to the Spanish 
Monarchy? 2. What Measures the English Ought to 
Take?" and a poem entitled "The Pacificator," and 
from which, p. 12, we quote thus : 

" Wit like a hasty Flood, may over-run us, 
And too much sense lias oftentimes undone us. 
Wit is a flux, a Looseness of the Brain, 
And sense-abstract lias too much Pride to reign. 

" Wit is a King without a Parliament, 
And Sense a Democratic Government. 
Wit without Sense is the Laughing-evil, 
And Sense unmixed with Fancy is the Devil." 

In 1701 appeared the satire in verse known as " The 

' We have already called attention to the subject of projects while 
the English Treasury was in conmiission duiing- the reign of James 
the First. Let it be investigated as to whether this work may have 
grown out of Bacon's relations to that commission. 

- See Bacon's expressed fears upon the subject in our quotation 
from him at p. 180. 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 433 

True-Born Englishman/' and aimed, it is said, at those 
who railed at King William as a foreigner. And James 
the First as to England was a foreigner, let it be remem- 
bered.^ There also appeared, this year " The Six Distin- 
guishing Characters of a Parliament Man ;" " Consider- 
ations upon Corrupt Elections of Members to Serve in 
Parliament ;" " The Freeholder's Plea Against Stock- 
Jobbing Elections of Parliament Men ;" " The Succes- 
sion to the Crown of England Considered ;'' " Legion's 
Memorial to the House of Commons ;" " The Villainy of 
Stock-jobbers Detected, and the Causes of the Late Run 
upon the Bank and Bankers Discovered and Consid- 
ered ;" ' " The History of the Kentish Petition ;" " The 
Present State of Jacobitism Considered in Two Queries : 
1. What Measures the French King will Take with Re- 
spect to the Person and Title of the Pretended Prince of 
Wales? 2. What the Jacobites in England Ought to Do 
on the Same Account ?'' "Reasons against a War with 
France ; or, An Argument Showing that the French 
King's Owning the Prince of Wales as King of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland is no Sufficient Ground for a War." 
Note that Charles the First was Prince of Wales at his 
marriage with the Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria of 
France in 1625. This marriage had been fixed upon not 
long after the breaking off of the match with the Infanta 
of Spain, already considered, in earlier pages. The terms 
of it were very distasteful to England. See ch. 18 of 
Knight's History of England, vol. iii. This year also 
appeared the pamphlets entitled " The Dangers of the 
Protestant Religion Considered from the Present Pros- 
pect of a Religious War in Europe" and "the Original 
Power of the Collective Body of the People of England 
Examined and Asserted." This last is indeed a most 
masterly piece of work. In 1702 appeared the three 
poems entitled " Reformation of Manners a Satire Yse 
Vobis Hypocrite ;" " Good Advice to the Ladies, Show- 
ing that as the World Goes, and Is Likely to Go, the Best 
Way for Them Is to Keep Unmarried," and " The Span- 
ish Descent, by the Author of the True-Born English- 

^ Concerning the orioin of this title, " True-Born Englishman," 
see the " Serious Reflections" of Robinson Crusoe. (Defoe's Works 
by Hazlitt, vol. ii., p. 25.) 

2 Let this be vievNed in connection with the South Sea scheme. 



434 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

man/' As the mentioTied article in 1701, entitled '' The 
True- Born Englishman," became popular, some later arti- 
cles were thus subscribed. Indeed the first published 
edition of these writings was so issued. No name as 
author was appended to them until later, as we shall 
see further on. This year also appeared " Legion's 
New Paper ;" " The Mock Mourners ;" " A New Test of 
the Church of England's Loyalty ; or, Whigish Loyalty 
and Church Loyalty Considered." The article entitled 
"An Inquiry into Occasional Conformity, Showing that 
the Dissenters Are in no Way Concerned in It," also ap- 
peared in 1702. And still the authorship of these writings 
remained undisclosed. 

Anne came to the throne in March of this year, and the 
controversy as to occasional conformity was at once revived, 
and in November a bill for its prevention was introduced 
into Parliament, but between conference and amendment it 
was finally lost. While this bjU was pending the mentioned 
pamphlet appeared. Harley was at this time Speaker of 
the House. 

Later, and in December the article entitled " The 
Shortest Way with the Dissenters ; or. Proposals for the 
Establishment of the Church of England," came forth, 
and for which Defoe was soon after procured to be arrested 
by the High Church party, which soon became furious 
for a victim. As to Bacon's purpose in this please see 
pp. 198 to 200. By reason of our unbounded claims, we 
must ask of the reader that he suspends still his judgment, 
for the end is not yet. 

Concerning this pamphlet Lee, vol. i., p. 66, says : 
" To understand the inimitable irony of this production, 
it must be read. No mere quotation or abstract can con- 
vey an adequate impression of its completeness. The art- 
fulness with which the writer gravely concealed his art, 
under an ajoparent simplicity of purpose ; the mental 
transformation, by which he was able to see through the 
eyes and read the thoughts of those violent men ; and then, 
so perfectly to express all their wishes, exactly in their 
own style, within less than thirty small pages, are proofs 
of the greatness of that genius which was destined to cap- 
tivate all readers." 

It is to be regretted that some of the liverymen of our 
day should not possess such rare gifts in theology. 



HA RLE Y AND DEFOE. 435 

In the A. D. B. Mask may be found this same inde- 
scribable art in whipping Buckingham's profligacy and 
dangerous political courses. Proclamation for Defoe's 
arrest was, as stated, issued January 10th, ]703. In the 
mean time he is said to have concealed himself. On 
February 24th he was indicted and his trial was ordered 
to take place in July. On February 25th the pamphlet 
was brought to the notice of the House of Commons, and 
was ordered to be burned the next day in New Palace 
Yard by the common hangman. As the printer and 
bookseller had both been taken into custody, Defoe, now 
in order to relieve them, is said to have surrendered him- 
self. Just before his surrender there appeared an explan- 
atory pamphlet, entitled " A Brief Explanation of a Late 
Pamphlet entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters." 
On March 24th, and while thus in confinement awaiting 
his trial, another pamphlet appeared, entitled " King Will- 
iam's Atfection to the Church of England Examined." 
Previous to the legal examination of his case, for l]e had 
no trial, there was prepared for publication the first vol- 
ume of his Works, under the title, " A True Collection 
of the Writings of the Author of The True Born English- 
man Corrected by Himself." Does the reader think that 
in this title — and subsequent volumes were in the same 
form — he sees displayed the mind that produced the body 
of this literature ? In other words, is it not evident that 
this title was but a cover? This volume contains twenty- 
two pieces, including " The Shortest Way with the Dis- 
senters," the article for which Defoe was arrested. A 
second volume containing eighteen pieces appeared in 
1705, and a third volume in 1710, and it is said with a 
key. And why a key ? 

In none of the various editions of Defoe's life, including 
the Britaomica article, do we find the day of his arraign- 
ment stated further than as set forth by Lee in a foot- 
note to his work, vol. i., p. .70, and where his name is 
spelled Deffoe, while in the Chamberlain's Book it is 
stated as Daniel Foe. In the notice for his apprehension 
it is stated De Foe alias De Fooe. Before his apprehen- 
sion Lee says he does not find him to have signed his 
name other than D. Foe. Without attempting any sp>ecial 
point here we still give the reader what we find. The 
mentioned footnote is in these words: "In the British 



436 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

Museum, (K. P. 110, f. 27,) is a copy of ' The Shortest Way 
with the Dissenters,' with some MS. notes in a contem- 
porary hand. Behind the title-page is the following : — 
* Nota. — At the Sessions in the Old Baily 7, 8, and 9 July, 
1703 Daniell Deffoe a supposed Dissenter, sometime a 
Hosier in Cornhill, pleaded guilty to an indictment for 
writing and publishing of this seditious libell and had 
Judgment to stand thrice in the Pillory with a Paper of 
his crime ; executed accordingly and to find securities of 
his good behavior for 7 years and to pay cc Marks and to 
lie in Prison till all be performed.' At the end of the 
copy is the following, in the same hand : — ' l^ota. — The 
Author hereof Pilloried for the same is quite a Good 
Champion for the Moderate Church of England, by a 
Review in opposition to Jacobite and Non-Juror and the 
High Churchman of Passive Obedience.' " 

In vol. i., p. 362, Lee mentions a mortgage as having 
been given by Defoe and his daughter Hannah in 1723, in 
the body of which their names are both spelled Deffoe, 
and it recites therein certain indentures as having been 
given to them in which their names are thus spelled. 
The instrument is signed Daniel De Foe, Hannah Defoe. 
On p. 407 Lee mentions an advertisement by Defoe in 
1726, in the Daily Post, a paper in which Defoe is said to 
have been interested, in which his name is spelled Deffoe, 
while, on p. 471, as to Defoe's widow, he says : " The 
register of the Bunhill Fields burial grounds contains the 
following entry : 1732 Dec 19. Mrs. Defow, Stoke ^"e\v- 
ington." It will be observed, however, that no first 
name is given, nor is it stated that she was the widow of 
Daniel Defoe. 

The mentioned arrest served now as the occasion for 
putting forth mournful portions of this literature, and we 
might think this arrest connived at with Defoe, but he 
probably neither knew Harley nor had aught to do with 
these writings prior to this time. It may possibly have 
been part of the original scheme, however. Many of the 
articles were so written as to serve but as the occasion for 
the bringing forth of others. 

On July 16th he is said to have put forth a satire in 
verse upon himself, entitled " More Reformation." This 
work he had mentioned as forthcoming in the preface to 
the already mentioned first volume of his works, and it 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 437 

would, it was said, concern his own errors and those of 
others, ''to settle matters between vice and repentance a 
little, and that they may have no excuse to reject the ad- 
monition because the reprover was not an angel." That 
portion of it quoted by Lee, vol. i., p. 70, as referring to 
Defoe, we quote as referring to Bacon's troubles in 1621 as 
follows : 

" And wouldst thou now describe a Modern lool. 
To Wit, to Parties, and himself a Fool, 
Embroil'd with State to do his friends no p;ood, 
And by his Friends theaiselves misunderstood ? 
Misconstru'd first in every word he said, 
By these unpitied, and by those unpaid : 
All Men would say the Picture was thy own. 
No Gazette Marks were half so qviickly known. 

" Unhappy Satyre, now Review thy Fate, 
And see the 'rhreatenmg Anger of the State ! 
But learn thy sinking^ Fortunes to despise, 
And all thy Coicard Friends,— ivivn'^ Enemies." 

Defoe remained in Newgate nntil early in August, 1704, 
when, through the influence of Harley, he was relieved, 
as stated in the mentioned '' Appeal to Honor and Justice." 
Though in Newgate the literary stream did not cease, as 
we have seen. While here it was that the work entitled 
*' The Storm," brought under review in our introduction 
to this work, p. 40, was put forth. While here his celebrated 
journal known as The Revieiu was begun, February 19th, 
1704, and was continued until July 29th, 1712, and finally 
by later numbers to June 11th, 1713, the last number 
ending with exit Review. To the time of Defoe's im- 
prisonment, in 1703, the first daily newspaper, the first 
magazine, and the first English novel had not as yet made 
its appearance. 

And so may we here again properly introduce our Head- 
light, " For I have taken all knowledge to be my provi- 
dence." Under our claim Bacon not only reformed the 
English stage, but, as strangely as it may appear, was our 
first journalist in the political articles of the Revieiv, and 
our first novelist in Crusoe, though this did not appear 
until some later nor until 1719. 

Were it not that interpolations introduced into many 
of these writings go further than to conform them, we 
should be inclined to the belief that* Harley, instead of 



438 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

seeking his own ends in them, and which ma}^ have been 
so but in part, was trying to carry out the real design of 
their author. 

The Daily Courant, put forth at Ijondon in 1709, was 
the first daily newspaper issued in England. But earlier, 
and in 1704 the Review was started as a weekly. Soon 
after it was issued twice and later thrice weekly. In size, 
the first four numbers excepted, it consisted of but two 
leaves in quarto, thus making, as we see. but a small 
amount of printed matter. Concerning the Revieiu, we 
from the Britannica article on Defoe quote as follows : 
'' This was a paper which was issued during the greater 
part of its life three times a week. It was entirely written 
by Defoe, and extended to eight complete volumes and 
some few score numbers of a second issue. He did not 
confine himself to news, but threw his writing into the 
form of something very like finished essays on questions 
of policy, trade, and domestic concerns ; while he also 
introdaced a so called ' Scandal Club,^ in which minor 
questions of manners and morals were treated in a way 
which undoubtedly suggested the Tatlers and Spectators 
wdiich followed. It is probable that if the five points of 
bulk, rapidity of prod action, variety of matter, originality 
of design and excellency of style are taken together, hardly 
any author can show a work of equal magnitude. It is 
unlucky that only one complete copy of the work is known 
to exist, and that is in a private library." ' 

The Revievj was brought to conclusion by the title " A 
Review of the State of the British Nation," and with the 
preface, from which we have already quoted at p. 421. This 
was followed by a work entitled " A Plan of the English 
Commerce ; being a Complete Prospect of the Trade of this 
]N"ation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign." 

The works issued from the time of Defoe's imprison- 
ment until his death, in 1731, may be seen in any good 
life of Defoe. They are too numerous to mention here. 
Concerning those issued after this period, Lee, in the in- 
troduction to his work, says that his numerous works 
published during the last twenty-five years of his life 
were, with about three exceptions, either anonymous or 

' See Bacon's statement, made in 1622, concerning a continuance 
of his Essays, p. 317. As to the " Scandal Club" and high-nonsense 
we shall later have occasion to refer. 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 439 

psendon3^mous.' He also says "he rarely alludes to his 
previous works, or to his private affairs. Occasionally in 
his Review, and more extensively in his ' Appeal to Honor 
and Justice ' may be found fragments of his personal his- 
tory ; but in general, we learn more about him in his 
works from the slanderous attacks of opponents, than 
directly from his own pen ; and he often left his antag- 
onists unanswered, rather than descend from his discussion 
of important principles to the defence of his own char- 
acter." 

Touching private affairs and literary methods Bacon 
says : " Let him who comes to interpret thus prepare and 
qualify himself ; let him not be a follower of novelty, nor 
of custom or antiquity ; neither let him embrace the 
license of contradicting nor the servitude of authority. 
Let him not be hasty to affirm or unrestrained in doubt- 
ing, but let him produce everything marked with a certain 
degree of probation. Let hope be the cause of labor to 
him, not of idleness. Let him estimate things not by 
their rareness, difficulty, or credit, but by their real im- 
portance. Let him manage his private affairs under a 
mask, yet with some regard for the provisions of things. 
Let him prudently observe the first entrances of errors into 
truths, and of truths into errors, nothing contemning or 
admiring. Let him know the advantages of his nature ; 
and let him humor the nature of others, for no man is 
angry with the stone that is striking him. Let him, as it 
were, with one eye scan the nature of things ; with the 
other, the uses of mankind. Of words let him distinctly 
know the mixed nature, which especially partakes of 
advantage and of inconvenience. Let him determine that 
with inventions the art of inventing grows. Also let him 
not be vain in concealing or in setting forth the knowledj^e 
which he hath obtained, but ingenious and prudent, and 
let him commend his inventions, not ambitiously or spite- 
fully, but first in a manner most vivid and fresh, that is, 
most fortified against the injuries of time, and most power- 
ful for the propagation of science, then least capable of 
begetting errors, and above all, such as may procure him 
a legitimate reader." (Works, vol. ii., p. 543.) 

^ All issaed prior to bis arrest were anonymous, as we have seen. 
We understand the same to be true as to the parts put forth by the 
other actors, those of Swift and Addison included. 



440 HA RLE Y AND DEFOE. 

The Defoe literature, in general, will be found notably 
shy as to any elements touching their author, as are the 
Shakespeare writings. But, again, portions of them will 
be found notably prominent to tell, and as if by effort, to 
link them to definite events. Interpolatory matter will 
commonly be found where such statements occur. Other 
journals in which Defoe is said to have been more or less 
interested were started after the close of the Revieio in 
1713, and which were doubtless under Ilarley's control. 
In these Lee found what is known as Defoe's Newly Dis- 
covered Writings. Until their discovery it was generally 
supposed that Defoe's political career had ended with his 
mentioned " Appeal to Honor and Justice" in 1715. To 
these we shall later have occasion to refer in the further 
elucidation of our subject. 

From this time to Defoe's death, said to have occurred 
in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfield, April 26th, 1731, I do 
not understand that there is anything known of him 
farther than as stated, except items of inference drawn 
from the writings themselves, and which, indeed, is true 
as to much of that already presented. He left no will, and 
is said to have died in a kind of concealment. He evi- 
dently had no effects of value, as, while having children, 
a creditor is said to have taken letters of administration 
more than two years after his death. 

Thus have we presented for the reader's consideration 
and to the light of what follows the chief accredited facts 
as to the man Defoe, concerning whom Chalmers, in clos- 
ing his Life of Defoe, issued in 1790, but sixty years after 
Defoe's death, says : " The zealous interposition of Mr. 
Lockyer Davis, and the liberal spirit of the Stationers' 
Company, procured me the perusal of the Register of 
books, which have been entered at Stationers' Hall. I 
was surprised and disappointed to find so few of De Foe's 
writings entered as property, and his name never men- 
tioned as an author or a man." 

These writings, however, whoever may have been their 
author, accomplished : 1. The act of union by which Eng- 
land and Scotland became one people ; 2. The overthrow 
of the Stuart line of kings and a secure Protestant dynasty 
to the United Kingdom. 

Until 1707 Scotland remained a kingdom having a 
Parliament of its own, which might have arranged for a 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 441 

king different from the line fixed upon by the Engh'sh 
Acfc of Settlement, and hence the importance of the men- 
tioned union. James the First and his line, it will be 
remembered, but inherited the English crown upon the 
death of Elizabeth, and James the Second and his son were 
now set aside. This act of union Bacon labored much to 
effect at the accession of James the First, as we have seen. 
The English Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, provided 
that after Anne's death the crown should pass to the Ger- 
man line, the House of Hanover, and thus to the Princess 
Sophia, a daughter of Elizabeth, the Electress Palatine, 
whose husband, Frederick the Fifth of Germany, had 
been head of the Protestant union of German princes and 
King of Bohemia, as we have seen. Did Bacon favor the 
German line ? This act of settlement brought George, the 
son of Sophia, to tlie English throne, in 1714, as George 
the First, as appears in earlier pages. 

During King William's reign he is said to have been 
much exercised with fears concerning the Spanish mon- 
archy, and out of which grew the already mentioned war 
with France.^ While Harley had promised much to the 
Jacobites, he still had not acted in their interest, and for 
this reason the mentioned prosecution against him proved 
abortive. 

In the preface to the Defoe v/ork, entitled " Memoirs of 
a Cavalier," a sadly garbled work, I find these lines : 
'' Memoranda. — 1 found this manuscript among my 
father's writings, and I understand that he got them as 
plunder, at or after, the fight at Worcester, where he 

served as major of 's regiment of horse on the side of 

the Parliament. I. K." 

Was the name here left blank Harley's ? We have seen 
that at the Revolution of 1688 he and his father took 
possession of Worcester in William's interest. The men- 
tioned preface begins thus : "As an evidence that it is 
very probable these memorials were written many years 
ago, the persons now concerned in the publication assure 
the reader, that they have had them in their possession, 

^ Let it be investigated as to whether King William had knowl- 
edge concerning these writings. Our field is so wide in its relations 
that time has not as yet permitted full investigation. Why should 
Bacon's manuscripts upon his reputed death have been sent to The 
Hague ? See p. 184. 



442 HARLEY AND DP^FOE. 

finished as they now appear, above twenty years. That 
they were so long ago found by great accident, among 
other vahiable papers, in the closet of an eminent public 
minister, of no less figure than one of King VV^illiam's 
secretaries of State." 

Let it be investigated as to whether there is any con- 
nection existing between these writings and the following 
quotation from Knight's History of England, vol. iv., p. 
357 : 

'^ At the village of Hurley, on the Berkshire. side of the 
Thames between Henley and Maidenhead, stood, in 1836, 
an Elizabethan mansion called Lady Place, built on the 
site of a Benedictine monastery by Sir Eichard Lovelace, 
who was created a peer by Charles I. This building was 
the seat of Lord Lovelace in the reign of Charles IL and 
James IL, — a nobleman whose lavish hospitality and ex- 
pensive tastes were rapidly wasting ' the King of Spain's 
cloth of silver' which his ancestor, one of Drake's privateer- 
ing followers, had won. The spacious hall opening to the 
Thames, the stately gallery whose panels were covered 
with Italian landscapes, and terraced gardens — were ruined 
and neglected when we there meditated, some thirty years 
ago, upon the lessons of ' Mutability.' All the remains 
of past grandeur are now swept away. But beneath the 
Tudor building were the burial vaults of the house of 
' Our Lady ' which seemed built for all time, and which, 
we believe, are still undisturbed. In these vaults was a 
modern inscription which recorded that the Monastery of 
Lady Place was founded at the time of the great Norman 
Revohition, and that ' in this place, six hundred years 
afterwards, the Revolution of 1688 was begun.' King 
William III., the tablet also recorded, visited this vault, 
and looked upon the ' Recesses ' in which ' several con- 
sultations for calling in the Prince of Orange were held.* 
During the four years in which James had been on the 
throne, the question of armed resistance had been con- 
stantly present to the minds of many AVhigs ; and to the 
Prince of Orange they looked for aid in some open attempt 
to change the policy of the government by force, — or, if 
necessary, to subvert it." ' The wife of the Prince of 

^ We have already intimated, and from many data, that Lord 
Bacon instead of going into his grave in 1626 went into retirement. 
We have likewise intimated a belief in his haviusi; a tiuancial interest 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 443 

Orange was the presumptive heir to the crown ; he was 
himself the nephew of the English King." 

Lee, as to the mentioned work^ " The Cavalier," says : 

" With equal truth it may be affirmed, that there are 
many passages in these Memoirs, which Defoe neither 
could, nor would have written. It will be sufficient to 
allude onl^ to the great hatred expressed towards the 
Scotch nation in various parts of the work. They are 
branded with infamy, for having sold their honesty, and 
rebelled for money against the King, to whom they had 
sworn allegiance. In another place he calls them ' these 
cursed Scots,' and towards the end of the Memoirs, de- 
clares bitterly, that they sold the King for money into the 
hands of his murderous enemies. I may also remark, that 
while there is nothing in the ' Cavalier ' or his story, un- 
becoming the high character of an English gentleman, 
yet is there little to be seen of the moral and religious 
spirit of dependence upon Providence, and appeal to the 
Scriptures, so characteristic of Defoe, even in his works of 
fiction. 

" In style and diction, I may say that there are occasion- 
ally whole paragraphs that scarcely afford a trace of 
Defoe's pen ; although generally, he appears to have re- 
vised, and often rewritten and extended the manuscript. 
His mind as well as his hand is much more perceptible in 
the latter part of the book than in the former ; and, as 
he was better acquainted with the geography and physical 
character of his own country than that of Germany, this 
part of the narrative is often very characteristic of his 
genius." (Lee, vol. i., p. 333.) 

Though thinking Defoe had time to spend upon the 
writings of other men, Lee at least distinctly admits that 
there is more than one hand discernible in this work. 
What is said of this particular work is true as to many of 
them, though in general it is true only where it becomes 
necessary to conform them, or to prevent detection. As 
already stated, the interpolations will generally be found 
to be the elements bold to tell, while all else shows caution 
and especially as to any facts touching their author. Early 

for many years in the voyages of Drake and others. And so let 
some investigation centre about this quotation. As he is most surely 
the author of these writings, so let us see if we may not find tlie 
head centre of his designs. 



444 HARLEY AND DEFOE. 

in my investigation, and before reading Lee, I called this 
work under review ; and while I found the early pages to 
be by the master hand, I soon found myself in another 
element, and again I would strike the clear water ; but so 
extensive were the interpolations that my interest abated, 
and I soon laid it aside, and have not since found time for 
its further perusal. 

As to Crusoe, Lee, though not crediting the story, says : 

*' The respect due to everything sanctioned by so great 
an authority as Sir Henry Ellis, compels me to notice a 
strange surprising account of the authorship of the first 
volume of ' Robinson Crusoe.' In 1843 Sir Henry edited, 
for the Camden Society, a handsome quarto volume, en- 
titled ' Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men.' At 
p. 320 is a letter by T. Warton, dated 1774, stating that 
the Rev. Benjamin Holloway told him that Lord Sunder- 
land told him, that the first volume of ' Robinson Crusoe ' 
was written by Lord Oxford while a Prisoner in the Tower, 
'as an amusement under confinement,' and was given to 
Defoe, who frequently visited him there ; and, that Defoe 
printed it as his own, with his Lordship's approbation, 
and added a second volume ' the inferiority of which is 
generally acknowledged.' " (Lee, vol. i., p. 204.) 

As to the work entitled " History of the Plague in Lon- 
don," Lee, p. 358, says : 

'' Defoe was but four years old at the time of the great 
Plague ; and therefore, supposing him to have remained 
in London the whole time, he could have had no personal 
knowledge beyond the dim recollections of childhood ; 
but as he grew up to maturity he must have conversed 
with many who had witnessed all its horrors, — have listened 
— at a time when the memory is most sensitive — to many 
a thrilling story of its devastations, — and have had pointed 
out to him the locations, not obliterated by the fire, where 
its deadly rage was most violent. Such a mind as his was 
probably better stored with the real history of the Plague 
than that of any other man living in 1721, when it again 
threatened to visit his country, and when the attention of 
all thinking people was painfully directed to its progress 
in France." 

We may here properly state that on several occasions 
during Bacon's times the plague visited London, and 
thrice with much severity — in 1563-64, in 1592, and again 



HARLEY AND DEFOE. 445 

at the accession of James the First, when some thirty- 
eight thousand died of it. In 1620 it again threatened 
Northern Europe. Even in March, 1575, while he was at 
the University, it was dispersed by reason of it. 

In his Natural History reference is often made to this 
subject.* There may be found in this work also many 
interpolations. But space will not permit a longer stay 
upon this part of our subject. 

Following Harley-s death, which occurred May 21st, 
1724, a man by the name of Andrew Moreton appears to 
have become more or less connected with these writings. 
Mr. Lee thinks Defoe assumed the name Moreton for some 
unapparent reason. An admirable pamphlet, entitled 
" Every Body's Business Is Nobody's Business,'' was 
thus issued in Moreton's name in 1725, though evidently a 
part of this literature. Concerning it, Mr. Lee, vol. i., 
p. 398, says : " I have in an earlier part of this IMomoir 
noticed the fact, that all the later Works of Defoe were 
published without his Name, and have endeavored to assign 
reasons for it ; it is less easy to say why at this time, and for 
some only of his subsequent productions, he assumed the 
name of Andrew Moreton. I shall consider in its pl-ice, 
the probable reason ; and now only observe that the 
pamphlet before us is the first so published." 

In order now to draw the mind of the reader in the 
direction of the subject treated under our next title, and 
thus to Defoe's Newly Discovered Writings, it seems proper 
to state that at about the time of the close of the Eeview, 
and on May 26th, 1713,. a paper known as Mercator'^ was 

^ In the New Atlantis it is said : " And we do also declare natural 
divinations of disease, plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, 
tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of 
the year, and diverse other things ; and we give counsel thereupon 
what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of Ihem." 
Let the Anatomy of Melancholy be called into relation with these 
thoughts, and where hellebore, the sovereign remedy for madness, 
is considered. Promus, 80. (By far the largest portion of hellebore 
should be given to the covetous.) 

^ Bacon says : " His Lordship's first general observation was, that 
merchants were of two sorts ; the one sought their fortunes (as the 
verse saith), per saxa, per ignes ; and as it is said in the same place, 
extremos excurrit Mercator ad Indos ; subjecting themselves to 
weather and tempests, to absence and as it were exile out of their 
native countries, to arrests in entrances of war, to foreign injustice 
and rigor in times of peace, and many other sufferances and adven- 



446 HARLEY AND ])EFOE. 

started consisting of but a single leaf in small folio. It 
treated of trade and commerce, and was continued until 
July 20tb, 1714, just before Ilarley's dismissal from office 
as Lord Treasurer, and concerning wbicli Lee, vol. i., 
p. 215, says : " The Ministry not only sanctioned but 
assisted the managers of the paper by placing at their 
service the Customs Returns of Imports and Exports, and 
other national sources of commercial revenue, for statistical 
l^urposes. It is a significant fact that Mercator ceased to 
exist only seven days before the discord which had long 
reigned in the Cabinet was brought to a climax, by the 
dismissal of the Earl of Oxford from the office of Lord 
Treasurer." 

Is it not thus quite evident that Harley — in other words, 
the Earl of Oxford, was not only behind these doings, but 
that through him or his influence was furnished forth the 
material by which these papers could with slight labor be 
conformed to the times, chasms or blank spaces being, so 
far as we know, left in some of them for the purpose, 
though this we do not affirm.' Again, was the sending of 
Harley to the Tower a little later, in 1715, the cause of 
the sudden breaking off of the partially prepared and never 
finished ^'Appeal to Honor and Justice," already called 
under review ? As to Mercator Lee further says : " I have 
already stated that the Mercator was discontinued on the 
20th of July 1714, when the fall of the Earl of Oxford was 
imminent, and the Customs returns, upon which the statis- 
tics of the Papers were based, would probably be no longer 
accessible." " (Lee, vol. i., p. 230.) 

Though Defoe and others may have been the dial-plate, 
was not Harley, after all, the real movement in these 
events ? This thought will be further touched upon under 
our next title. 

tures ; but that there were others that took a more safe but a less 
dangerous course in raising their fortunes." (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
iii., p. 348.) 

* Some of these writings by Swift, as " The Tale of a Tub" and 
" The Battle of the Books," have left in them blank spaces called 
chasms. See in this connection Addison's use of this word " chasm," 
and particularly in vol. iii., p. 427. 

^ Macaulay, in his already quoted statements concerning Harley, 
says he always appeared as one possessed of some monstrous secret. 



THEE AD OF THE LABYEINTH. 



Whateyer views the reader may entertain concerning 
positions already taken in this work, he will, we think, 
agree with ns in this, that if Lord Bacon did. attempt 
subtle and. nnusnal methods in which to have his thoughts 
still active among men, or as stated in Sonnet G8, at]). 116, 
''To live a second life on second head," he had that 
peculiar genius which would enable him to lay them remote 
from detection. 

As stated, the so-called Newly Discovered Defoe Papers 
w^ere found by Lee in journals started not only after the 
final close of the Beview, in 1713, but after that of 
Mercator, in 1714, and. in a sense they seem to fall under 
a head by themselves, and will some day, we apprehend, 
be found to contain more than has yet been seen in them. 
They were what in journalism came to be known as lead- 
ing articles, and concerning which Lee, vol. i.> p. 273, 
says : " Thus I claim for Daniel Defoe that he first origi- 
nated and exemplified in his own person those, mighty 
agencies in the formation and direction of public opinion 
now comprehended in the word Editor and Leading Ar- 
ticle." And we may add that some of them may be taken 
for pioneer work in pointing the true course to journalism. 
See articles beginning at pp. 310 and 387. 

Many of these articles seem so written as to serve merely 
as the occasion for bringing forth others, some again seem 
unusually discordant, while others have been taken bodily 
from out their true relations in the works known as the 
stories of Defoe, or else were copied bodily from the 
articles into the stories. 

Numbers of them contain great subtlety and what may 
be called an underlying thread of thought. Some, if not 
all, serve, doubtless, as framework for cypher writing. 
In connection with this thought we introduce two articles 
from Lee, vol. iii., pp. 119 and 172; the first, entitled 



448 THREAD OF THE LABYRIKTH. 

*' On Cypher Writing," the second, " On Cryptography ;" 
the first dated June 22d, the second August 17th, 1723.^ 
We give them in their order thus : 

'' M. J. {Mist's Journal], June 22. — Sir, I being one of 
your constant Readers, observe, that many of my Fellow- 
Students apply to you, on any emergent Occasion, for 
Advice, Information, etc., as to a general Intelligencer. 
And, though I have been your constant Reader some 
Years, 3'et have never taken that Liberty before, but, being 
willing, once in my Life, to do you that Honour, 1 thought 
I never should have a more proper Occasion than now ; 
for, being of an inquisitive Disposition, I have been 
puzzled in my Thoughts for some Time. In short, Sir, 
the Occasion of giving you this Trouble is this : — 

*' Being in Company lately with some of my Acquaint- 
ance, we were talking of several Subjects now in Fashion, 
and, among others, of the modern mysterious Way (to use 
the Words of a late Author) of decyphering Words wrote 
in mysterious Characters. And one of our Company did 
assure us, that there are Persons now in England who can 
decypher a Letter wrote in any Characters, and some who 
can find out the true Letters, and put the Words, though 
the Language be unknown to them. So that when they 
have done that, they know not the Meaning of them 
without an Interpreter.* Now I, who have no opinion of 
the Art of Conjuration, could not conceive which Way 
this could be done by any other Art ; and, as he could 
not inform me where such Persons were to be found, so, 
for the Reason aforesaid, he left me under Uneasiness of 
Thought which Way to know the Truth of this Matter ; 
for I thought that to find this performed, would be more 
curious than all the Arts of Hocus Focus that ever I saw, 
besides the Usefulness of it. For, as it may be very use- 
ful to many Persons, as well in a private as in a publick 
Capacity, to have VVays of writing their Secret, though 

* Lord Bacon, as is well known, was familiar with all of the sub- 
tleties of this subject. And in 1623, one hundred years prior to the 
appearance of these Defoe articles, he, in his De Augmentis, presents 
different phases of it and sets out what he regarded as the most 
perfect example of a cypher. See pp. 71-76. In his great Poetic 
Commonwealth these papers were part of the scheme. 

^ The Interpreter is indeed a needful character in these writings 
and, as will appear in connection with the subject, of "high non- 
sense," hereafter touched upon. And see p. 80, note 1. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 449 

innocent Affairs, to one another, in Characters known to 
few, if any, besides themselves ; so it would be of great 
Satisfaction to the Publick, to find that no Persons can 
carry on any Correspondence, by Letters, against the 
Interest of their Country, so private, but that some People 
can discover it. Also it would be a Means to deter any 
one from it, when he finds that his Meaning can be dis- 
covered by some, in whatever Characters he writeth/ At 
length I considered with myself, who should I apply to, 
but to one, who (if I mistake not your own Words) hath 
dipp'd into all Arts and Sciences, and, I suppose, all 
Mysteries, and one who hath seen a great deal of the 
Hocus Pocus Art. 

" Then, pry thee Mist, put on your Conjuring Cap, and 
try at the few following Lines ; and if you find them 
beyond your skill, be so candid and ingenious as freely to 
acknowledge your Incapacity in this Art, and desire some 
other more mysterious Sons of Art, to do it for you. Let; 
me have the true Meaning of them in plain Englisli, in 
some of your Journals shortly, or else let it be known, 
that there is one Person, at least, in the World, who can- 
not believe that there is any certainty in this Ait. And, 
to help you something forward on your Way, I assure 
you, that these are all Englisli Words, and not Words 
without any Signification, but the Sense of them coherent ; 
though, perhaps, not in the most polite Style, according 
to the Modern and best Way of writing English, because 
such Words are made use of as may make the greater 
Difficulty in the Discovery. And take this also along with 
you, that if, upon Trial, you do not find them to be of an 
innocent Meaning, you may assure yourself, that your Art 
fails you, and you must turn over your Books once more ; 
for neither you, nor any Man living, can put any ill Con- 
struction on them, if they give the true Meaning of them, 
which will be known by the Key, which shall be faith- 
fully transmitted to you, as soon as you have decjpher'd 
them, or acknowledg'd j^our Incapacity in this Art. 

'' Please to insert this, with the following Cypher, in 
your next Journal, and you'll oblige many of your Eeaders. 
" I am, Your humble Servant, etc. 

* Look at Bacon on the subject of " real characters," chs. 1 and 3 
of Book 6 of the De Augmenlis. See quotations, pp. 71-76. 

15 



450 THEEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

"pnios" kwafroz rmyzo kgy307x 829vmqyd4 ca 
39zxowz nft reysrod6ywz xmoz& hwasi m67eyw yfxe 
vm&ag cnzx&gz usa xmocz&dloz 49bopaz«& hoe&qax ysv6 
rejc67pondxmz 24z6 vmoM kwerygoie63pa4d qwec xmo9w 
qod46p zyhforvz xepnwtz xm&ag zelownais 273 8w6j 
xmoag basi y7x6 maz k&ekdo wouzef paxm o5k&waosr& 
hexm zmop vmux qgej resxwngM riivzoz 398q&wosx 
oqS&ruz kg6r&o3.'' 

" M, J.y Aug. 17. — Since my first giving the Piiblick a 
Letter in Cyjiliers, which I explain'd, I have receiv'd sev- 
eral others to tlie same Effect ; and some of my Corre- 
spondents are so fond of the Humour, that they will write 
to me no other Way, by which means it takes me up as 
much Time and Study to come at the Sense of an Epistle, 
as it does a School Boy to construe his Lesson ; and, if the 
Whim continues, I shall be oblig'd to keep an extraor- 
dinary Secretary for decyphering, wiiich must cause a 
Deficiency in my private Civil List, and oblige me to lay 
a Tax upon the Public, for the Service of the Year, — that 
is, raise the Price of my Paper. 

" I can assure my Eeaders, I never had any Notion of 
Pleasure in a Fox Chase, where a Man rides till he Fatigues 
himself, and then digs to come at the Fox ; I say, after 
he has taken all those Pains, and has killed his Game, he 
finds the Beast is good for nothing. Thus it has fared 
with me in some of those Tryals of Skill ; 1 have pored 
and studied to unravel all the Intricacies of one of these 
Letters, and when I have discovered all, I have met with 
nothing to reward my Trouble, or that could entertain my 
Eeaders ; so that I have had my Labour for my Pains. 

" But perhaps, it may be the Fashion now, to invent 
new Alphabets ; and the Modes alter in these Things, as 
much, and as often as in Dress. I remember once a Man 
was reckoned Ignorant and 111 bred, who, in writing to a 
Person of any Condition, did not make at least two thirds 
of his Paper to consist of Margin. After this Fashion 
had its Run, it became a Piece of Rudeness to make any 
Margin at all, and it was Polite to begin the Letter very 
low, leaving a large void Area at Top, so that the first 
Page of a well-bred Epistle was almost a carte-Uanclie. 
I expect very soon that some whimsical Person, who is 
considerable enough to be followed and flattered ; will 
introduce a new Mode of beginning the Letter at the 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH, 451 

bottom of the Page, and writing np to the Top, as the 
Hebrews were accnstomed to do. No Time can be more 
apt to receive such a Custom than the present, when all 
Actions seem to run retrograde, and Men act backwards 
in all Things. 

" But this Maggot^ of writing in Cyphers and Figures, 
is not entirely new, a Whim not unlike it started up some 
Years since, when several elaborate Pieces were published 
for the Edification of the Youth of this City, under the 
Title of Tunlridge Letters ; in which certain Figures 
were made use of to stand for Words and Syllables. It 
seemed an ingenious Invention of writing "Shorthand, 
after a long laborious Manner ; as if going round about 
had been the nearest Way Home. 

^' Yet this was the Summer's Entertainment of our 
Beans and Belles, at which Sport, when a Man had 
taken as much Pains as a Dutch Commentator, and was 
come to the End of his Labours ; he discovered a miserable 
Piece of Nonsense, without Meaning or Design, a Diver- 
sion only fit for those who otherwise would pass their 
Time at the more ingenious Amusement of catching Flies. 

" I find this Folly ridiculed by Ben Jonson in his 
celebrated Play of the Alchymist, where Abel Drugger 
causes his Name to be writ upon his Sign, with tlie Letter 
A and a Bell painted, for Abel, the Letter D, with a 
Rug, and a Dog grinning for Drugger. So that we find 
that this is only an old Folly reviv'd. 

"This kind of Learning was first borrowed from the 
Egyptians, who used it to purposes, very different from 

^ As to this use of the word " maggot," we, from Love's Labour's 
Lost. Act V , sc. 2, p. 453, quote as follows : 
" O ! never will I trust to speeches penn'd, 
Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue ; 
Nor never come in visor to my friend ; 
Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song ; 
Taffata phrases, silken terms precise, 
Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation, 
Figures pedantical ; these summer-flies 
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation : 
I do foreswear them ; and I here protest, 
By this white glove, (how white the hand, God knows !) 
Henceforth my wooine: mind shall be express'd 
In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes : 
And, to begin, wrench, — so God 'help me, la ! — 
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw." 



452 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

what our Moderns have done ; 'tis said, that under the 
Figures of Birds and Beasts, the Mysteries of their Ee- 
ligion were couch'd, and that the Magicians discovered 
this Way, in order to conceal them from the Vulgar.' 

" After this, they used the same figurative Way of ex- 
pressing the Qualities of the Body, or Virtues of the 
Mind, and particularly upon the Tombs of great Men ; as 
Strength was expressed by an Elephant, Faithfulness by a 
Dog, and this was their manner of writing Epitaphs. 

" We follow the Example in our Days in Respect to the 
Living ; and we find a Way of praising the Qualities of a 
Man by the choice of the Presents we make him, — as a 
Lion, which is an Emblem of Courage and Generosity, is 
commonly presented to a King ; whereas we give Parrots 
to Women, — and I have known a Monkey sometimes pre- 
sented to a Beau. 

" And in this Way of communicating one's Thoughts, 
a Man may be Satirical, and give others a Hint of their 
Vices, as well as by Writing ; for when we find ourselves 
vex'd and oppressed by Persons too powerful for us to 
contend with in a lawful Way, we may ridicule their 
Vices in a Manner not cognizable by a Statute. 

" I have heard a Story of an arbitrary Minister in 
France, who was Persecutor of the Wits of that Age in 
general ; but he pursued one with a more than common 
hatred. The merry Sufferer was every now and then 
sending his Persecutor something to remember him, as an 
Ai^e or a Cat, or other Aniinals, which are the Images of 
Malice and Revenge. The ridiculous Presents were always 
attended with Crowds of People, to the Gates of that great 

^ Look into Addison and into the plays for these elements, and 
note in Bacon's quoted prayer what he says about studying God's 
creatures as well as his Scriptures. These elements will be found 
spread more or less into the parts played hj the various actors in 
this great drama, and so are found in Defoe, Swift, Addison, Steele 
and some others. And so, again, we remind the reader that Bacon 
had good reasons for saying in Sonnet 55 that his praise should still 
find room 

" Even in the eyes of all posterity, 
That wears this world out to the ending doom." 

And he ends Sonnet 146 thus : 

" And death once dead, there's no more dying then " 
Promus, 936. {After my death no hurt can come to me.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 453 

Man, for all Men were pleased with anything that ridiculed 
him ; and he was at length convinced, that he had hetter 
correct those Vices tliat provoked the general Hatred 
against him, than in the Wantonness of his Power, to 
crush a poor Man much superior to himself in every 
Thing that's commendable, only for endeavoring by his 
Writings to entertain and instruct the People. 

" The Turks have a Way of communicating their 
Thoughts to each other, different from any before-named. 
It is a Correspondence invented to carry on the Affairs of 
Love ; and nothing is more common there, than for a 
Lady to receive a Billet doux in a Nosegay, which she 
answers, by sending back another Nosegay, and the Lover 
knows his Fate, by perusing the Flowers. Perhaps it 
may be thought that he who has the finest Garden may 
be the most eloquent in this Way of Address ; but that 
does not always follow, for it is not in the Quantity, but 
in the Choice of the Flowers, and the different Manner of 
ranging them, by which the Lover signifies the Tenderness 
of his Passion, and lets his Mistress know his Pain ; but 
be that as it will, it is certain that an Amour is often carried 
on by an Intercourse of this Kind, and the Lovers, per- 
haps, never talk to one another till they meet to have the 
Ceremony of Marriage performed. 

*' I could teach my Readers this mystick Art of making up 
Love Nosegays, but I forbear it out of a Consideration, 
that it may tend to promote Clandestine Marriages, and 
instruct young Ladies how to deceive and outwit their 
Guardians and Parents ; and it is often found that in 
Love Affairs they are but too witty already." 

Touching the external of some of these articles, it may 
be said, that as the attention of men can be gained only 
by that which interests them, so can they be brought 
higher only by bait framed to their capacities ; and 
hence he wdio takes all knowledge for his providence, 
must needs have a scale that touches as well the lowest as 
the highest human capacity. And thus much may be said 
concerning the so-called " Scandal Club" of the Revieiu 
mentioned at p. 438 and the subject of high nonsense 
later touched upon. We must permit Lord Bacon to be 
what he was — a prodigy of wonder. Macaulay of him says : 
^' The best collection of jests in the world is that which 
he dictated from memory without referring to any book. 



454 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

Oil a day on which illness had rendered him incapable of 
serious study." See pp. 1?2 and 193. 

We would have the reader note the strange use of capital 
letters in these articles. They thus occur in all of the 
newly discovered Defoe papers. The same is true as to 
the A. D. B. Mask and '' Weldon's Court and Character of 
King James." Let the reader find, if he can, some reason, 
rule, or end in these methods.^ Mr. Spedding, in his 
labored effort to show which of the two versions of Bacon's 
paper of advice to George Villiers, afterward Duke of 
Buckingham, was first produced, as to the shorter version 
says : '' And as for punctuation and capitals they are 
governed by no principle of any kind, and would be very 
uncouth and perplexing to the reader of a modern page." ^ 
These, therefore, he has changed, as he tells us. May not 
the turning of that paper into this form have been the 
chief object in reproducing it ? This we suggest as ques- 
tion is made as to why Bacon should have cared to repro- 
duce it. See Bacon's Letters, vol. vi., pp. 9-27. 

In order now to bring this particular phase of our sub- 
ject, as to subtlety and cyphers, at once into relation, it 
becomes necessary to quote from other parts prepared for 
the actors in this literary scheme, and so introduce from 
those great satires,^ Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, pp. 229- 
ol, the following : 

" I told him, that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the 
natives called Langden, where I had sojourned some time 

' See this work, pp. 71-75, and cli. 12 of Book 2 of the De Aug- 
mentis. And in ch. 2 of Book 6 we have : " And (as I have already 
said) uniformity of method is not compatible with uniformity of 
matter. Wlierefore as I approve of Particular Topics for invention, 
so to a certain extent I allow of Particular Methods for transmis- 
sion." 

'^ Mr. Spedding in his preface to Bacon's History of Henry the 
Seventh also says : " The various readings of the printed copy I have 
quoted in the notes : neglecting, however, all varieties of mere form, 
such as the introduction of capital letters, of italics, and of inverted 
commas ; which, as there is no direction for them in the manuscript, 
I ascribe to the printer's fancy and the typographical fashion of the 
day." (Bacon's Literary Works, vol. i., p. 5.) The Defoe articles 
are a century later in date, let it be remembered. 

^ See ch. 13 of Book 2 of the De Augmentis, where Bacon says 
that " we shall take no particular notice of satire, elegy, epigram, 
ode, etc., but turn them over to philosophy and the arts of speech." 
etc. And see these distinct subjects, and in this order, h.andled in 
Addison, vol. vi., pp. 587-605. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 455 

in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a man nor 
wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, 
prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their sev- 
eral subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the 
colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and 
their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually 
the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise 
their own characters of profound politicians ; to restore 
new vigor to a crazy administration ; to stifle or divert 
general discontents ; to fill their coffers with forfeitures ; 
and raise or sink the opinion of public credit, as either 
shall best answer their private advantage. It is first 
agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons 
shall be accused of a plot ; then, effectual care is taken to 
secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in 
chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, 
very dextrous in finding out the mysterious meanings of 
words, syllables, and letters. 

" For instance, they can discover a close-stool,' to sig- 
nify a privy-council ; a flock of geese, a senate ; a lame 
dog, an invader ; the plague, a standing army ; a beetle, 
a prime minister ; the gout, a high priest ; a gibbet, a 
secretary of state ; a chamber-pot, a committee of gran- 
dees ; a sieve, a court lady ; a broom, ^ a revolution ; a 
mouse-trap,^ an employment ; a bottomless pit, a treasury ; 

' In All's Well that Ends Well, Act v., sc. 2, p. 372, we have : 
" Par. Pray you, sir, deliv^er me this paper. 

Clo. Foh ! pr'ythee, stand away : a paper from fortune's close- 
stool to give to a nobleman ! Look here he comes himself." 
And in Love's Labour's Lost, Act v., sc. 2, p. 460, we have : 

" You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for this : your lion, 
that holds his poll-ax sitting on a close stool, will be given to Ajax : 
he will be the ninth Worthy. " Concerning the use of the w^ord 
"ring" in this play, see Addison, vol. ii., p. 181 ; and as to the 
" drum," see p. 115," Note also the use of the w^ord " drum" in Bun- 
yan's Holy War. 

2 In Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act v., sc. 2, p. 350, we have : 
" I am sent with broom, before. 
To sweep the dust behind the door." 
Let these different points be looked for in the plays. 
2 In Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 291, we have : 

' ' King. What do you call the play ? 
Havi. The mousetrap. " 
And in the same scene p. 296, we have : 



456 THREAD OF THE LABYRIKTH. 

a sink, a court; a cap and^bells,' a favorite; a broken 
reed,^ a court of justice ; an empty tun, a general ; a run- 
ning sore, the administration. 

*' When this method fails, they have two others more 
effectual, which the learned among them call acrostics 
and anagrams.^ First, they can decipher all initial letters 
into political meanings. Thus, N, shall signify a plot ; 
B, a regiment of horse ; L, a fleet at sea ; or, secondly, by 
transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected 
paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of a discon- 
tented party. So, for example, if I should say in a letter 
to a friend ' Our brother Tom has just got the piles,' a 
skilful decipherer would discover, that the same letters 
which compose that sentence may be analyzed into the 

following words, ' Resist. a plot is brought home 

the tour.' And this is the anagramatic method. 

" The professor made me great acknowledgments for 
communicating these observations, and promised to make 
honorable mention of me in his treatise."" 

The next Baconian actor which we introduce upon the 
point under review is Joseph Addison, and from vol. iii. 
of the works attributed to him, p. 103, we quote as fol- 
lows : 

" Designing this day's work for a dissertation upon the 
two extremities of my paper, and having already dis- 
patched my motto, I shall, in the next place, discourse 



" Ham. Sir, I lack advancement." 

^ As to " cap and bells," please see Addison, vol. ii.. p. 326. 

2 Bacon at his fall speaks of himself as a broken reed, 

2 Please see the six articles on acrostics and anagrams in Addison, 
vol. ii., pp. 342-67. On p. 366 we have : " The genius of Heroic 
Poetry appeared with a sword in her hand and a laurel on her head. 
Tragedy was crowned with cypress, and covered with robes dipped 
in l)lood. Satire had smiles in her look, and a dagger under her 
garment. Rhetoric was known by her thunderbolt ; and Comedy, 
by her mask, ^Lfter several other figures. Epigram marched up in 
the rear, who had been posted there at the beginning of the expedi- 
tion, that he might not revolt to the enemy, whom he was suspected 
to favor in his heart." And see vol. iv., pp. 105-10. 

■^ This quotation is taken from the cheap though admirable edition 
of Gulli veer's Travels in the Gladstone series, of which we have made 
use. Note, please, the introductory matter to this edition as to the 
great caution originally displayed in giving the work, though anony- 
mous, to the iHiblic. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 457 

upon those single capital letters which are placed at the 
end of it, and which have afforded great matter of specu- 
lation to the curious. I have heard various conjectures 
upon this subject. Some tell us, that is the mark of 
those papers that are written by the Clergyman, though 
others ascribe them to the Club in general. That the 
papers marked with E, were written by my friend Sir 
Koger. That L signifies the Lawyer, whom I have de- 
scribed in my Speculation ; and that T stands for the 
Trader or Merchant ; but the letter X, which is placed at 
the end of some few of my papers, is that which has 
puzzled the whole town,' as they cannot think of any 
name which begins with that letter, except Xenophon and 
Xerxes, who can neither of them be supposed to have had 
any hand in these speculations.'' 

^ The subjects handled in these papers are chiefly such as to he of 
interest at any historic period, and tliey are studiously and adroitly 
handled to meet this necessity. And though there is occasionally an 
interpolation, still let the reader in the scope of the work have an eye 
to this thought. See Addison, vol. iii., pp. 435-38. And in sec. 1 of 
the discourse on the "Mechanical Operation of the Spirit," by 
Swift, we have : " In all my writings I have had constant regard to 
this great end, not to suit and apply them to particular occasions and 
circumstances of time, of place, or of person, but calculate them for 
universal nature and mankind in general." Bacon said he did not 
wish his writings to court the present time, etc. See p. 96. The 
use of the word " town" throughout the plays. The Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, and Bunyan's Holy War, instead of any mention of local- 
ity, is one of tiie noticeable earmarks in the direction indicated. See 
in this connection the subject of the Town of Vanity Fair in The 
Pilgrim's Progress, p. 161, and see p. 91, note 2. 

^ The five anonymous actors are represented as sending in their 
speculations for publication to Bickerstaff, the ruling spirit. In 
Addison, vol. vi., p. 687, it is said: ''Isaac Bickerstaff. Esq., 
Astrologer, was an imaginary person, almost as well known in that 
age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had 
assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against 
Partridge, the maker of almanacks." Promus, 111. (Astrology is 
true, but the astrologer is not to be found.) As to Bickerstaff and these 
characters, see Addison, vol. iii., pp. 461-65, and vol. iv., pp. 67-71 
and 172-76. The article on p. 172 opens thus: "The first who 
undertook to instruct the world in single papers was Isaac Bicker- 
staff of famous memory. A man nearly related to the family of 
Ironsides, We have often smoked a pipe together, for I was so 
much in his books, that at his decease he left me a silver standish, 
a pair of spectacles, and the lamp by which he used to write his 
lucubrations." Here we have a distinct Baconian expression, " much 
in his books." Bacon says : " For the Papists, it is not unknown to 



458 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

*' In answer to these inquisitive gentlemen, who have 
many of them made inquiries of me by letter, I must tell 
them the reply of an ancient philosopher, who carried 
something hidden under his cloak. A certain acquaintance 
desiring him to let him know what it was he covered so 
carefully, ' I cover it (says he) on purpose that you shall 
not know.' ^ I have made use of these obscure marks for 
the same purpose. They are, perhaps, little amulets or 
charms to preserve the paper against the fascination or 
malice of evil eyes ;^ for which reason I would not have 
my reader surprised, if hereafter he sees any of my papers 
marked with a Q, a Z, a Y, an &c., or with the word 
Abracadabra.^ 

" I shall, how^ever, so far explain myself to the reader, 
as to let him know that the letters C, L, and X, are caba- 
listical, and carry more in them than it is proper for the 
world to be acquainted with. Those who are versed in 
the philosophy of Pythagoras," and swear by the Tetracth- 
tys, that is, the number four, will know very "well that 
the number ten, which is signified by the letter X (and 
whicli has so much perplexed the town), has in it many 
particular powers ; that it is called by Platonic writers 
the complete number ; that one, two, three, and four, 

your Grace that you are not at this time much in their books." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 449.) 

^ In tills connection see the opening page of the Anatomj^ of 
Melancholy. 

^ In this way Bacon kept off envy from his work, and by high 
nonsense gave protection to the actors of his great project. 

2 In Defoe's "History of the Plague," Bohn ed., p. 26, rnay be 
seen this word arranged into a figure, as an amulet against the 
plague. Bacon's views as to Pythagoras will be found to be the 
views spread into all of these writings. See Bacon's introduction to 
" Century X." of his " Natural Historv." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., 
p. 640.) In Twelfth Night, Act iv., sc.^S, p. 430, we have : 
" Clo. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl ? 

3faL That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. 

Clo. What thinkest thou of his opinion ? 

Mai. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion." 

^ Pythagoras is in many places referred to in the plays, and so 
Bacon in many places makes mention of Pythagorean diet. And 
articles of diet are used as covers in the plays. Again Bacon says : 
" And hence the ancient times are full of all kinds of fables, para- 
bles, enigmas, and similitudes ; as may appear by the numbers of 
Pythagoras, the enigmas of Sphinx, the fables of JEsop, and the 
like." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 317.) See p. 224. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 459 

put together, make up the number ten ; and that ten is 
all/ But these are not mysteries for ordinary readers to 
be let into. A man must have spent mauy years in hard 
study before he can arrive at the knowledge of them. 

" We had a rabbinical divine in England, who w^as 
chaplain to the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeth's time, 
that had an admirable head for secrets of this nature. 
Upon his taking the doctor of divinity's degree, he 
preached before the University of Cambridge, upon the 
first verse of the first chapter of the first book of Clironi- 
cles, in which (says he) you will see the three following 
words, 

Adam, Sheth, Enosh. 

*' He divided this short text into many parts, and dis- 
covering several mysteries in each word, made a most 
learned and elaborate discourse. The name of this pro- 
found preacher was Doctor Alabaster, of whom the reader 

* Promus, 853. {TJie obscure numbers of Plato. Plato sometimes 
obscured his philosophy with the numbers of Pythagoras, w^ho le- 
duced nearly all philosophy to numbers.) Of Pythagoras Bacon 
says : " Yet his opinion that the world consists of numbers may be 
so understood as to penetiate to the principles of nature. For there 
are two opinions, nor can there be more, with respect to atoms or 
the seeds of things ; the one that of Democritus, which attributed 
to atoms inequality and configuration, and by coiifiguraliou position ; 
the other perhaps that of Pythagoras, which asserted that they were 
altogether equal and similar. For he who assigns equalit}^ to atoms 
necessarily places all things in numbers ; but he w4io allows other 
attributes has the benefit of the primitive natures of separate atoms, 
besides the numbers or proportions of their conjunctions." See 
Phil. Works, vol. v., p. 432. This is an all-important point in the 
Baconian philosophy, and Bacon in part illustrates it in the treat- 
ment of colors. He says : " But as w^e intend not now to reveal, so 
we are circumspect not to mislead ; and therefore (this warning 
being given) returning to our purpose in hand, we admit the sixth 
direction to be, that all bodies or parts of bodies which are unequal 
equally, that is in a simple proportion, do represent whiteness ; we 
will explain this, though we induce it not. It is then to be under- 
stood, that absolute equality produceth transparency, inequalitj^ in 
simple order or proportion produces whiteness, inequality in com- 
pound or respective order or proportion produceth all other colours, 
and absolute and orderless inequality produceth blackness ; which 
diversity, if so gross a demonstration be needful, may be signified 
by four tables ; a black, a checker, a fret, and a medley ; w'hereof 
the fret is evident to admit of great variety." See this point, Phil. 
AVorks, vol. iii., p. 237. Let the reader linger somewhat here. 
"With Bacon, transparency is nudity. See p. 42, note 1. 



4G0 THREAD OF THE LABYKIKTH. 



ay find a more particular account in Doctor Fuller's 
)ok of English Worthies. This instance will, I hope, 



mi 

book 

convince my readers, that there may be a great deal of fine 
writing in the capital letters which bring up the rear of 
my paper, and give them some satisfaction in that particu- 
lar. But as for the fall explication of these matters, I 
must refer them to time, which discovers all things." 

Let what Bacon in his Addison says of Homer, at p. 71, 
be here called into relation with the ending of Book 1 of 
the De Augmentis. 

We would likewise have the reader note as we go the 
further circumstance in the proofs, though without stress 
upon it, that many of the newly discovered Defoe papers 
have names appended to them of like signification with 
those in The Pilgrim's Progress ; as, Mr. Eminent, Frank 
Faithful, Theophilus Love Wit, Christopher Careful, 
Jeremiah Dry Roots, Tom Turbulent, Sir Timothy Caution, 
Anthony Quiet, Jonathan Problematic, Jack Lidifferent, 
Anthony Antiplot, Able Peaceable, Anthony Broadheart, 
The New Convert, etc. 

Others, again, have appended to them the names of 
Philo, Democritus, Diogenes, Simpronicus, Quinquim- 
palix, Libertatas, Nicety, Sincerity, Enigma, Ancient, 
Modern, All-Hide, Chesapeake, Theo, Anti-Italic, Thunder 
Bolt, Boatswain Trinkolo, etc. ; while others are either 
unsubscribed or have appended to them mere initials. ^ 

^ And some few of the Addison articles are llius subscribed, as 
John Thrifty, Nicholas Humdrum, Leonora, Will Honeycomb, 
Robin Good-Fellow, Martha Tempest, etc. And occasionally in the 
plays we have a like personification of qualities ; and so in Much 
Ado About Nothing, Act v.. sc. 1, p. 289, we have : 

" Dogb. Moreover, sir, which, indeed, is not under white and 
black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass : I beseech 
you, let it be remember'd in his punishment. And, also, the watch 
heard them talk of one Deformed : they say. he wears a key in his 
ear, and a lock hanging by it ; and borrows money in God's name ; 
the which he hath us'd so long, and never paid, that now men 
grow hard hearted, and will lend nothing for God's sake : Pray 
you, examine him upon that point." 

Concerning the above-mentioned " Robin Good-Fellow" — that is, 
Bacon's friend, Sir Faulke Grevill — he, in one of his Apophthegms, 
says : "Sir Faulke Grevill had much and private access to Queen 
Elizabeth, which he used honorably, and did many men good ; yet 
he would say merrily of himself ; That he was like Robin Goodfellow ; 
For when the maids spilt the milkpans, or kept any racket, they 



THREAD OF THE LABYRIJs^TH. 461 

As the word " Christian" designates the chief character 
in Tlie Pilgrim's Progress, so throughout all of the writ- 
ings under review, Shakespeare included, do we ask atten- 
tion to the distinctive use of that word in preference to 
any of sj^nonymous or similar import. In the first and 
second of the six dialogues by Defoe on Christian conver- 
sation, the disputants are distinguished as Confirmed 
Christian, Doubting Christian. (Hazlitt's Defoe, vol. iii.) 

Bacon would not now permit his wounded name to de- 
tract from The Pilgrim's Progress, this crowning seventh 
or Sabbath-day work for the good of men ; and so, doubt- 
less, sought for it and for his Bunyan's Holy War another 
channel.^ As to these works, The Pilgrim's Progress was 
evidently produced last, as will appear in the author's 
apology for the book. And on p. 57 of the work see the 
verses that were made to accompany the Holy War. They 
are designed to show and to make certain that both works 
have the same author, but who still would be cloaked. 
And at the end of the poem the reason is stated thus : 

" I write not this of any ostentation ; 
Kor 'cause I seek of men their conimendation : 
I do it to keep them from such surmise, 
As tempt them will my name to scandalize. 
Witness my name ; if anagram 'd to thee, 
The letters make Nu hony in a B." ^ 

would lay it upon Robin ; So icliat tales the ladies about the Queen 
told her, or other had offices that tJiey did, they would jnit it upon him." 
(Bacon's Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 158.) See the Addison article, 
vol. iii., pp. 77-80. 

* " Either our history shall, with full mouth. 
Speak freely of our acts ; or else our grave. 
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, 
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph." 

—Henry V , Act i., sc. 2, p. 473. 
' Promus, 927. (They will eat my bees and make my honey.) 
The introductory poem to the Holy War ends thus : 
" JSTor do thou go to work without my Key, 
(In mysteries men soon do loose their w^ay) 
And also turn it right if thou wouldst know 
My riddle, and wouldst with my heifer plow, 
It lies there in the window, fare thee well. 
My next may be to ring thy Passing-Bell." 

A few lines earlier in the poem we have the substance of Bacon's 
expression, "But I hold thee too long in the porch." The lines 
are in these words : 



462 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

All of the newly discovered Defoe articles by Lee are 
taken from journals in which Defoe is said to have been 
interested between 1716 and 1729. They were found 
chiefly, as Mr. Lee tells us, in what was known as Jipple- 
bee's Jou7mal. He says : " His first article in Applebee's 
Journal was published on the 25th of June 1720, which 
was the day following that on which the Act of Parlia- 
ment and Royal Proclamation, for the instant suppression 
of all further Babbling Schemes, had come into operation. 
The subject he adopted was the strange and sudden alter- 
ations produced by the Act in Exchange Alley, and the 
streets, taverns, and coffee-houses, near that centre of re- 
cent * Whimsical Transactions.' He describes these 
changes in his happiest and most playful manner, signing 
his communication ' Oliver Oldway.'"^ It will be found in 
its place among his writings ; and, in addition to the 
amusement it will afford, has a permanent interest as part 
of the history of the national delusion. Defoe continued 
to write weekly articles in J^^plebee's Jotirnal until the 
12th of March 1726, and the largest portion of bis hitherto 
uncollected writings discovered in my research, have been 
transcribed from its pages." (Lee, vol. i., p. 338.) 

Had this article been put forth a century — that is, one 
hundred years earlier by Bacon himself, on March 12th, 
it would have been issued twenty- eight days prior to his 
reputed death, said to have occurred April 9th, 1626. 

Our claim therefore is, that while this literature was 
prepared by Sir Francis Bacon for a future historic 
period, portions of it distinctly represent the struggles 
through which he himself passed shortly before and fol- 
lowing his fall ; and that from some of these articles, as 
scaffolding, so to speak, he framed his great allegorical 
play. The Tempest. 

We therefore proceed to give place to a series of articles 
from the mentioned Defoe papers, which we regard as 

" But I have too long held thee in the Porch, 
And kept thee from the Sun-shine with a Torch." 

In the introduction of Bacon's History of Life and Death we have : 
" To inquire however concerning the last steps of death and the 
final extinction of life, which may happen so many ways both ex- 
ternal and internal (yet all which meet as it were in a common porch 
before they come to 'the point of death), is in my judgment pertinent 
to this inquiry ; but I reserve it till the end." And see p. 58. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 4C3 

bearing in the direction of Bacon's troubles and of that 
great play, and to which we invite the most careful atten- 
tion, reminding the reader that ofttimes a case seemingly 
hopeless at its opening reaches the irresistible ere its close. 

Already have we seen, in earlier pages, that under the 
reign of James the First, and in 1619, strong efforts were 
being made by Bacon to bring about a retrenchment in 
the expenses of the kingdom, as well as to repel and beat 
back tendencies, not merely toward Rome, but toward 
atheism and various immoralities ; or, as stated in the 
play of The Tempest, the flouting and scouting element. 
His interest likewise m the Bohemian outbreak, in 1618, 
which was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, has 
been somewhat called under review. In connection with 
this thought we introduce an article, under date November 
29th, 1718, Lee, vol, ii., p. 79, and which is as follows : 

'' W. E. P. [Whiteliall Evening Post], Nov. 29.— 
To the Undertakers of the Whitehall Evening Post, Sirs, 
— The liberty you give to inserting Letters in your Paper 
relating to the affair of Spain, whether they are receiv'd 
from other hands, or are the product of your Author's in- 
vention, is very agreeable to many of your Readers ; and 
I believe is generally so to all those who have right notions 
of the Public Affairs of Europe, and the true Interest of 
Great Britain ; especially while those Letters are written 
with good sense and good meaning, and appear, as they 
hitherto seem, to be calculated for the giving right ideas 
and just conceptions of the nature, reason, and necessity 
of the approaching War with Spain. 

*' But why does not your Author, who, if we guess at 
him right, is well enough qualified for such an under- 
taking, enter into the part of the necessity and justice of 
that War, which is apparent from our Trading circum- 
stances, and from the situation and extent of our com- 
merce ? How can he refrain entering into some of those 
many arguments which naturally result from the Hazard 
of your Trade in the suppos'd view of the growing power 
of Spain 't 

*' If I mistake not your Author, I have heard him say 
he would be glad of an opportunity to retrieve the good 
opinion of his Friends, which he lost by being drawn into 
former Follies. Tell him, now is the Time for him to 
let the World see, that whatever he might be formerly 



464 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

biass'd to say in a Case wliicli he could not defend, like a 
CoLincil pleading for his fee, and obliged to make the best 
of a bad Cause ; yet that now he speaks from Inclination, 
and has a Cause that must go along with his Judgment, 
as well as with the duty of an Anthor. 

" Tell him, it is expected from him, he should show 
the World that there is a necessity for Great Britain to 
exert herself in timely preventing the growing Exorbitance 
of the Spanish Power, or to give up from this moment all 
her Pretences to the Trade either of the Mediterranean or 
Mexican Seas. That 'tis a scandalous mistake for him, 
or any one else, to say that this war is undertaken to 
aggrandize the House of Austria, and to make the Em- 
peror the Terror of Europe : But tliat it is undertaken 
to prevent Spain making herself the Terror of Great 
Britain, by ruining our Trade, overtlirowing our Colonies, 
and destroying the liberty of that Commerce, by which 
our Manufactures are extended abroad, and consequently 
are supported at Home. That 'tis Nonsense to talk of 
this War from Religious Amusements, that it is carried on 
between Popish Powers, who we ought to let fight with 
one another as long as they please, and look on with 
pleasure'to see them dash themselves to pieces one against 
another, that the Protestant Powers may see their Enemies 
weaken'd, and their own strength reserv'd to pull them 
all down at last, and bury them in the Ruins of the Wliore 
of Babylon,^ etc. 

" When Europe is engaged in a Religions AYar, and the 
question is only stated between Protestants and Papists, 
these Things will be seasonable enough, and we shall 
hear him with pleasure upon those Heads.'' But tell him 
he knows well enough this is a War of civil Interest, not 
Religious : This is a War in which the Question is, How 
the Right of Princes, the Intercourse of Nations, and the 
Peace, Prosperity, and Trade of the World shall be pre- 
served ; how the ambition of voracious and unreasonable 
Men, vested with Power, and Gaping for more than their 

' In the play of Henry V., Act ii., sc. 3, p. 498, we have : 

" Quick. A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women ; but then 

he was rheumatic ; and talk'd of the whore of Babylon." 

'^ Bacon's fears as to the Spanish monarchy have been touched 

upon in earlier pages. And see p. 222. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 465 

share, shall be restrain' d ; and the just Bounds and 
Limits of Great ones' be on all sides preserv'd. 

** Tell him that it is a Malicious mistake to say, that 
Great Britain is an Auxiliary in this War ; we are really 
Principals ; our Concern in it is infinitely more than that 
of the Emperor, or of the Princes of Italy : It is not of a 
thousandth pait of the consequence to the House of Aus- 
tria who possesses the Kingdom of Sicily, the Harbour of 
Cagliari, the Yare of Messina, or the Gulf of Naples, as it 
is to us. The Emperor would be Emperor, and a most 
potent powerful Prince, tliough he had not a Foot of 
Ground in Italy, and was so when he had very little there ; 
but the Case differs quite with us, and this I say your 
Author knows. 

" He knows that as Spain was 40 years ago a sapine, 
and indolent, an unmanaged Government, their King 
enjoy' d the Advantages of his possessing Naples and 
Sicily without much of our Concern ; but the Spaniards 
now are quite another Nation than Spain then could be 
said to be.2 That if the present King sets up for a Supe- 
riority of his Marine Power, and resolves to have a stated 
Force of 80 Men-of-War of the Line of Battle in his Fleets, 
and if Spain resolves to improve all the Advantages that 
such a Superiority at Sea will give them, I say, he knows ; 
for every man of Common Sense must Icnoio, that Sicily, 

^ The expression " great ones" is Baconian ; and note it in the 
plays. In Bacon's Essay entitled "Of Envy," we have: "And 
therefore it is a bridle to great ones, to keep them within bounds." 
See the expression also in his Essay entitled " Of Seditions and 
Troubles." And in his Essay entitled "Of Ambition," we have: 
" It is counted by some a weaikness in Princes to have favorites ; but 
it is of all others the best remedy against ambitious great ones." 
And in Hamlet, Act iii., sc. 2, p. 281, w^e have : 

" King. It shall be so : 

Madness in great ones must not un watch 'd go." 

In Twelfth Night, Act i., sc. 2. p. 353, we have : 

" And then 'twas fresh in murmur (as you know, 
What great ones do the less will prattle of) 
That he did seek the love of fair Olivia." 

' See the subject of Naples in the play of The Tempest. Bacon 
says : " I see once in thirty or forty years cometh a Pope, that cast- 
eth his eye upon the kingdom of Naples, to recover it to the church ; 
as it was in the minds of Julius 2, Paulus 4, and Zistus 5." See this 
article, Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 500. 



46G THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

in sucli a hand, would be like a Chain drawn across the 
Mouth of the Levant Seas, which without their leave no 
Ship could pass ; or like the Castle of Elseneur in the 
Sound, that locks up the Trade of the Baltick, and makes 
the most powerful Nations of Europe pay Tribute to the 
weakest of Europe's monarchs, the King of Denmark/ 

'' Here is a Field, for him to give his most Extended 
Thoughts their due Length : It is impossible to answer 
what may be said on this Subject, or to confute the Kea- 
sons which naturally occur to prove, that Great Britain 
cannot acquiesce in letting Spain possess Sicily, without 
giving up her Trade to Turkey, and the Gulf of Venice, 
on which the consumption of her Manufactures so much 
depends ; her Trade to Zant for Currants, to Gallipoli for 
Oyl, to Messina and Naples for Silk, and in a Word, with- 
out effectually ruining her Italian Trade, viz., her Trade to 
Genoa, Leghorn, etc., as also indeed her whole Commerce 
of the Mediterranean. 

" Are all these Arguments asleep with him, that he says 
nothing to these Things? Send him then to our West 
Indian Islands, and bid him tell us from thence, how 
long we shall be able to protect our Settlements there, and 
carry on our Navigation and Commerce with our own 
People at Jamaica, Barbadoes, etc., if the Naval strength 
of Spain be suffer' d to grow to such an immoderate and 
monstrous Pitch, as it is known the ambition of the 
Spanish Ministry now aim at. 

'' Let us see your Author exert himself now in so just a 
Cause as this, and tell him he shall be forgiven all his 
former wrong steps ; and honest men will begin to receive 
him again, and restore him to their good opinion, as a 

' Already hi our remarks upon the play of Hamlet, pp. 94-96, 
have we called attention to Bacon's fears touching the safety of 
England and her Protestantism in connection with trade, should the 
mouth of the Baltic Sea fall to the control of the Catholic powers. 
And for like reason it was that later he was so interested in Sicily 
and Naples. Let the reader look at these geographic points. These 
points Bacon longed to see under control of the Protestant powers. 
As to Tunis and Africa, mentioned in the play of The Tempest, 
see p. 338, and note 2, p. 337. In his article on the Holy War Bacon 
as to Algiers says : " In the piratical war which w^as achieved by 
Pompey the Great, and was his truest and greatest glory, the pirates 
had some cities, sundry ports, and a great part of the province of 
Cilicia ; and the pirates now being, have a receptacle and mansion in 
Algiers." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 467 

man return' d to himself, and inclined to make us (to use 
his own words) U Amende lionorable for what is past. 
Your Friend, etc., Spanish." 

Here we have another touch upon relations involved in 
the play of Hamlet, we think, which concerns not only 
philosophy, but the Keformed faith and empire. In Act 
ii., sc. 2, following the expression "for look, where my 
abridgment comes," observe as bearing upon Bacon's 
purposes the speech touching Eneas' tale to Dido,' the 
mention of '* Pyrrhus," of " the ominous horse," of 
" Priam." Bacon in Promus Note 20 says : (Enough has 
been done for my country and Priam). In this connection 
we from Bloss's Ancient History, p. 358, quote as fol- 
lows : 

" First Punic War. — We come now to consider Borne in 
a most interesting period of her history ; when, venturing 
beyond the bounds of Italy, she stretched her arms across 
the sea, and began the conquest of other lands. About 
100 years before the foundation of Kome, Dido, sister of 
Pygmalion, King of Tyre, tied from the tyranny of her 
brother, with a select band of followers, and landed in 
Africa, near the spot where Tunis now stands. There a 
city was founded, which extended its commerce along the 
shores of the Mediterranean, and became one of the richest 
and most powerful cities in the world. Carthage also 
possessed, in the opinion of Aristotle, one of the most 
perfect governments of antiquity. At the time of the 
Punic wars she had under her dominion 300 of the smaller 
cities of Africa, with their territories. The expulsion of 
Pyrrhus from Italy — the subjugation of the Samnites and 
Tarentines — had made the Romans masters of the garden 
of Europe. Sicily was their granary, but, not content 
with the supplies of corn annually received, they secretly 
desired to possess the island itself, the more, perhaps, 
because Carthage claimed some of its cities, and sent her 
fleets unquestioned into the bay of Tarentum and up the 
Adriatic." 

As Troy,' the land of Priam, was won through the 

I As to Dido, see p. 338, note 2. 

^ Promus, 776. (We Trojans were — i.e., have now ceased to be ; 
as " Troja fuit," Troy was.) Promus, 760. (By making trial the 
Greeks arrived at Troy. Try. and you will succeed.) Promus, 35. 
(Men sin within the walls of Troy as well as outside of them.) As to 
the walls of the soul see p. 353, note 2, and p. 374, note 2. 



468 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

wooden horse of the Greeks, so did Bacon stuff the carcass 
of their mythology with material that should, win it back. 
In his notes made in 1608 we have : " Discussing scorn- 
fully of the philosophy of the Grajcians w"' some better 
respect to y® Aegiptians, Persians, Caldes, and the utmost 
antiquity and the mysteries of the poets." (Bacon's Let- 
ters, vol. iv., b. 64.) Such a literary record as Bacon has 
made has never been equalled. 

We next introduce two articles from what is called the 
Miranda correspondence, and which have subtle relations, 
and concern, we think, the Miranda of The Tem- 
pest. The first bears date March 21st, 1719, and the 
other May 27th, 1721. (Lee, vol. ii., pp. Ill and 382.) 
They are, we think, subtle satires touching Prince Charles, 
and are as follows : 

''J/. /., March 21. — Mr. Mist makes no Question but 
that everybody will grant to him that the Ladies' Affairs 
are of much greater Value than those of Government, 
Kings, Emperors, and such Trifles ; and that Matters of 
Love are of infinitely more consequence than Matters of 
State ; so he hopes he need give no other Reason why he 
has adjourned private Things, such as long Discourses — 
upon the Dangers of the Nation from a foreign Invasion ; 
• — upon the great Advantages of a Protestant Wind, which 
blows so exactly for our safety, as if the sky itself were 
come into the Quadruple Alliance ; — upon the forwardness 
of our Navy, part of which are at Sea ; — and upon the 
raising Troops, the success of the new Levies, and the 
like ; — and, is obliged to apply himself to that more 
weighty affair between Madam Miranda and her Pre- 
tenders. 

"The state of this Lady's Affairs, it seems, stands at 
present thus, in few Words ; having received an almost 
innumerable number of Letters in answer to her first 
Proposal of Matrimony, she dispatch 'd some of them by 
our Hands in the last Journal, their substance being, in 
her Opinion, perfectly remote from the matter. That 
some of them may have Weight she does not deny, and 
therefore has order'd them to be honoured in her Name 
with a Publication at length ; and as to those which are 
still omitted, she desires the Parties may take her silence 
for the best Answer that can be given them. 

" The first of these to be published, is a very ingenious 



THREAD OF THE LABYRIi^^TH. 469 

good- hum on r'd Letter in French ; the Lady commands lis 
not to translate it, because, she says, it is not easy to make 
a Translation equal to the Original, or to do Justice to 
•the Author, in the spirit, vivacity, and the beauty of the 
Expression ; but as to the Gentleman himself, the Lady 
only says, that she is very sorry he is not an Englishman, 
which happens to be one of the Circumstances which she 
long ago obliged herself to. 

*' Next to this, we were oblig'd to insert, at large, a 
Letter written from this Lady's former Lover, who claims 
to do himself, and her too, some Justice, in rectifying 
some Misunderstandings that have happened between 
them, and which have perhaps been the Occasion of the 
Lady's looking abroad to please herself better ; Now we 
cannot deny but that the Gentleman is very much in the 
right to recover her if he can, and herein we should do 
him Justice by publishing his Letter ; but we are now 
prevented from inserting either of these Letters at this 
time." 

" A. J., May 27. — We have been often told how a 
great many intended Matches have been lately broken olf 
by the sudden and unexpected Fall of Fortunes in Ex- 
change-Alley. But the following Story is an Instance of 
one that was brought on by that very Means. A certain 
young Gentleman near Covent Garden, had no sooner got 
above £40,000 by the South Sea Traffic, but he forgot a 
beautiful and virtuous Lady, that he was upon the Point 
of being marry'd to.^ However, according to the uncer- 
tain rotation of human Affairs, this same Gentleman, half 
a year after, was stripped of all, having lost not only his 
acquir'd, but his original Fortune. He thereupon put on 
a bold Face, for he had no other Game to play, and came 
to his quondam Mistress, and told her his Case ; and, in 
short, that he was so reduc'd as to want five or six 
Guineas ; to which she reply'd, / am glad of that loitli all 
my Heart.^ Are you sOy Madam? Said he again, suspect- 

^ Let it be remembered in connection with Bacon's secret scheme 
for revenue, that it was £40,000 that Raleigh was to forfeit in case 
of failure to perform his promises. This was the amount of Bacon's 
fine fixed upon at his fall, 

2 This expression, " with all my heart," may be found throughout. 
I have observed its use some six or seven different times in the phiys. 
See the expression in The Pilgrim's Progress, pp. 91, 275, and 318. 
And on p. 275 we have : " But now we are in, we are in, and I am 



470 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

ing her Constancy, as one that had been himself incon- 
stant might very well do. Why so! Because, says she, 
I can give you Jive or six thousand; and so she did, and 
herself into the Bargain." 

We next give place to the first paragraphs of an impor- 
tant article issued in 1719, showing fears for the Reformed 
faith. » 

'' M. J., May 30. — Mr. Mist,— I suppose you are not 
tied up altogether to Froth and Levity, but now and then 
(not to use it) you may away with something more solemn 
and solid than Whitsd?Uide Walking and Miranda^s 
Fables. Do you consider, man, that while the World is 
preparing to go together by the Ears for Baubles abroad, 
— as Ambition, Avarice, and the Devil guide them, — we 
are actually engaged in a worse War at home .'^ I say a 
worse War ; for they fight Men against Men, but here we 
are grown so audacious, that like the Titans of old we are 
engaged in the same unequal Combat as the Poets feigned 
of those Giants against Jupiter. In a word, the War is 
against Heaven itself, Mortal Man against Almighty 
God ; and where it will End judge you. 

*' What I speak of, you will easily guess to be the break- 
ing out of the old Avian Heresy among us, — and particu- 
larly the frightful consequences of it among our religious 
people, — driving them, by the mere force of Controversy, 
into all the Errors and Blasphemies of Leliiis, Soci/nus, 
Michael, Servetus, and Fustics Socinus, the great Father 
of Socinianism." (Lee, vol. ii., p. 129.) 

We next give place to the first of several articles con- 
cerning the Hell-Fire Club, and dated May 13th, 1721 
(Lee, vol. ii., p. 373), and which is as follows : 

''^ A. /., May 13. — Sir, — I have made diligent Enquiry 

glad with all my heart." In the play of the Prince of Tyre, Act v., 
sc. 2, p. 379, we have : 

" Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore, 
And give you gold for such provision 
As our intents will need ? 

Lys. Sir, 
With all my heart ; and when you come ashore, 
I have another suit." 

Bacon says : " For certainly counsel is the blind man's guide ; and 
sorry I am with all my heart, that in this case the bhnd did lead the 
blind." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., p. 355.) 



THREAD OE THE LABYRINTH. 471 

among all Parts of the Town, which I am acquainted 
with, to find, if possible, some one Member, or harden'd 
Defender of the Members of these impions Societies, so 
much talk'd of ; and, to my particular Satisfaction, I 
must acknowledge I have not found, and cannot find one 
of them, or any Footsteps of one of them, or, at least, 
one that will dare to own any Thing of it ; although my 
Diligence in the Search, has been, I assure you, very par- 
ticular, and such as would be thought, if you knew it all, 
to be very sufficient. 

" From hence I have had a strong Inclination, to question 
the Truth of the whole Story; and that indeed there is 
no such Thing, no Men so wicked, no Set of Men so 
audacious. I must confess, I should be very glad to say, 
I hope there is nothing more in it but Rumour and Clamour ; 
tho', on the other Hand, I am very apt to take it 
the other Way, and to say with his Majesty's Declaration 
and Order, and hope, that there is no ground to believe it. 

'' But when I was indulging that charitable Thought, 
it return'd, that tho' they may not merit that A^ile 
ISTame particularly, yet there is a Set of Men who having 
openly deny'd the Son of God, robb'd him of his Divinity, 
and consequently of his glorious and immortal Nature, — 
have levell'd him with themselves ; and who, in like 
manner, have expos'd to ridicule the Notion of the Holy 
Spirit, and of his glorious Influence upon the Souls of 
Men. And, I say, what are these but a Hell Fire Club, 
in whom all ideas of Gospel-Light are eradicated, and 
blotted out of the Mind ; and who are harden'd to deny 
the Lord that bought them. 

" For my Part, when Men are impious, and merely for 
a Flout,' as these Men do, cast off all Reverence of the 
Deity, lay aside all sorts of Knowledge and Learning, and 
set themselves up to tell their Redeemer, that he is not the 
Person the World has taken him for ; these Men seem to 
be ripen' d up by the Progress of their Crimes to become 
what we call Fire-Brands of Hell, or any Thing ; and 
there never was, in my Opinion, a more direct and Oppo- 
site Denomination for them, than that of a Hell-Fire Club. 

" Tell me not of Civility, or of using such Men as these 

' This word " flout," as used in the play of The Tempest, was the 
starting-point in my interpretation of that work, and it may be 
found throughout these writings. 



472 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

with ill Manners. There are indeed a sort of wild Crea- 
tures in the Fields and Woods, which being found by the 
Sportsmen, they give a certain Latitude to, which we call 
the Game Law/ But there are another sort which are 
voracious and impudent, who, if you will not attack them, 
will attack you. To these we give no Law, but Knock 
their Brains out, wherever they may be found. 

'' Such, in a Degree, are the People I am speaking of. 
Tell me no more, I say, of treating these Men like Gentle- 
men, who will not treat their- Saviour like a God. They 
who can audaciously rank our Blessed Redeemer with 
Men, should themselves be rank'd with Beasts. If Jesus 
Christ must, by those Wretches, be call'd a mere Man, 
I am sure they do not merit the Title of Men, but should 
be used like Brutes, or like something a great deal worse ; 
I mean Devils, human Devils, incarnate Devils ; or, in 
modern English, Hell-Fire Men. The Title is very suita- 
ble to them ; and very suitable to what they will certainly 
be, at last. 

" Let us search no further then, if these are not the 
same, the individual Hell-Fire Club, which the King's 
Proclamation, or publick Order, has branded with the Title 
of Impious, — they are certainly the same Thing in reality ; 
for what can be more Impious ? What a greater Insult of 
Heaven than to deny the Son of God to be God, as if we could 
divide the Infinite, and make Classes of Gods, contrary to 
the express Words of the Scripture ; The Lord tlnj God is one 
God; or as if, because we are taught to distinguish the 
Persons in the Trinity, that therefore, as I wrote once 
before, we could solve the Doctrine of the Trinity by a 
System of Human Generation. 

" Make then no more Difficulty in the Search ; here is 
your Hell- Fire Clnb.^ All the Deists and Arians, and 

^ This distinct thought I remember to have seen in Bacon's writ- 
ings, but I do not now remember where it may be found. 

'^ These articles have evidently a relation to Bunyan's Holy War, 
and which with greater ease may be shown to be Bacon's than The 
Pilgrim's Progress. We understand it as written soon after the 
brer.ch of the mentioned Spanish marriage alliance. Its character. 
"My Lord Willbewill," we understand to personate qualities pos 
sessed by Buckingham. Touching the Hell- Fire Club we quote fiom 
it thus : " And, said he, if you break in upon them, as 1 wish we do, 
either with some, or with all our force, let them that break in look 
to it, that they forget not the work. And let nothing be heard in the 
Town of Mansoul but Hell-fire, Hell-fire, Hell fire." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 473 

modern Socinians, which we find risen up among us, are 
Members of it ; and you ought to go to the Bench of 
Justices and demand the Reward for the Information, as 
'tis promis'd in their Advertisements, to encourage those 
that should detect them. I am, Sir, your Servant, Ortho- 
dox." 

We next introduce part of an article under date Feb- 
ruary 8d, 1722 (Lee, vol. ii., p. 483), as follows : 

" A. J., Feb. 3. — Sir, St. Augustine, in his Epistles to 
Marcellinus, tells us, that the Romans justify'd the Lib- 
erty they allow'd themselves in, to the Practice of all 
manner of Vice, from the Pattern of their Gods, which 
Patterns they drew from the fabulous Writings of their 
ancient Authors, and the Recapitulation of them in 
Homer, in Ovid, and such celebrated writers of those 
Times. 

" The Stories of the Rapes and Incests of Jupiter, the 
Lewdness of Venus and Mars, and the like, made those 
Crimes not only familiar to Men, but took off the Scandal 
of them ; for it was hard to perswade Men that they might 
not be allowed to commit such Tilings as were legitimated 
by the Practice of those Beings, who they thought fit to 
adore. 

" It must be confess'd, it seems wonderful how the 
Honour and Reverence given to those impious Deities could 
be so long maintained in the World, while their Historians 
were stain 'd with so many vile Actions ! Things, some 
of which were shocking even to Nature, and could no 
otherwise be supported but by extinguishing both the light 
of Nature, and Reason, in the Minds of Men ; nay, by ex- 
tinguishing all the Degrees of Virtue and Morality, and 
transforming Men into Monsters of Wickedness ! 

'* There is no doubt but this very Thing did assist, at 
last, in pulling down the Pagan Worship in the World, 
and exploding those Rights which were manifestly ap- 
pointed to Set off imaginary Deities ; who, if they had 
any real Essence, were fitter to be detested, as infernal 
Furies and Devils, than worship'd as Gods. On the con- 
trary, the Christian Religion recommends itself from the 
Purity of its Precepts, and the sublime Nature of its 
Worship, which was directed to the Glorious Maker of all 
Things, and to him only ; and withal, from this general 
happy Character, which its Professors also made evident by 



474 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

their Practice, namely, fchat it commanded all that was 
Good and Virtuous, Just and Upright, Humble and 
Gentle, — and Forbade all that was Wicked, Unjust, Dis- 
honorable, Immodest, or Arrogant and Proud. 

" But to go back to the Romans ; while they serv'd 
these impure Deities, it was no Wonder, I say, that they 
imitated their Practices, and justify'd their Manners from 
their Example ; and by this means the World was, in 
those Days overwhelm 'd with all manner of Vices and 
Immoralities. 

" Since the Suppressing the Pagan Worship, and that 
the Examples of the Gods would no more bear Men out in 
their Impious Practices, the Sons of Crime fly to the 
Practice of their Governors for their Pattern, Begis ad 
exemplum ; and it is a kind of Warrant for Debauchery, 
either of Morals or of Principles, that those who are 
either the Guides or Censors of Men's Actions should be 
allow'd for their Examples. 

" Hence, in all Christian Nations, pious and just 
Princes have thought themselves highly obliged to keep a 
Guard upon their own Conduct, lest the people should 
fall into Corruption and Degeneracy of Manners by their 
Example. It was the saying of a wise Heathen, That it 
is in tlie Power of Princes to reform Kingdoms hy their 
Example^ Mtt that it can never he done hy Force. It was 
said, by way of Character, of Constantius the Roman Em- 
peror, Son of Constantine the Great, that he gave excel- 
lent Laws to the Empire, but did not promote their Exe- 
cution by his Example ; and upon this Score it was left 
doubtful, whether he was to be rank'd among the good 
Emperors or the bad. 

" It is further observable, that an evil Example is much 
more prevalent and fatal to the Morals of a Nation, when 
it comes from those Magistrates or great Men, who are 
most popular, and who have gained most upon the Affec- 
tion and Opinion of the People. 

" I began the Argument in the Exampjles of Emperors 
and Sovereign Princes, but I level the Inferences to that 
which is my principal View and Design ; namely that of 
Magistrates and great Men ; who, tho' they are not 
immediate Sovereigns, are yet the Men to whom the 
People have their Eye in a more than ordinary Manner, 
with respect to their Morals ; because, by their Office, 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 475 

they are empowered to punish the Immoralities of others, 
and therefore ought to he as popuhir in their Example, 
as they are in their Stations and authority. And I insist 
that when any Person has, either by his private or publick 
conduct, made himself popular ; he has a double Obliga- 
tion upon him to guard his Behaviour in such a manner, 
that no corrupt Precept or Principles may come recom- 
mended to the World from his Authority.^' 

Our next article bears date November 26th, 1720 (Lee, 
vol. ii., p. 302), and concerns the mentioned Miranda or 
South Sea marriage. It is as follows : 

''A. /., Nov. 26.— Sir, — You are one of our Weekly 
Oracles, God help us ! and, for want of a better, we are 
fain to come every now and then to you, and the rest of 
your Journalists, and such like Conjurors, to tell us our 
Fortunes ; as men did to the like senseless Devils, in the 
Days of Yore, at Delplios^ Atri, Cliios, and other places, 
— to the Weekly Journals of Diana, Apollo, and the rest 
of them. 

" Now, since we have such infallible Scoundrels to go 
to, we humbly hope you will all put your Heads together. 
Tell the Town a little what is like to be their Fortune in 
the great Transactions of Trade that are now coming 
upon the Stage, and of which we are at this Time so very 
doubtful, in which so many Thousand Families are so 
deeply concern' d, as, for aught we know, to be over Head 
and Ears in the Mire of it ; in short, we mean the South- 
Sea. Tell us, ye sage Journal Scribblers ! what will be 
its Fate this approaching Time of Tryal ; and will the 
Company come out of the dirty Mizmaze they have brought 
themselves and their Adventurers into, or will they not ? 
That is to say, Will they come out with Applause ? 

*' We are told, that the Dutch, who are Fellow- Sufferers 
with us, have made Pictures and Hieroglyphicks, to repre- 
sent Things by, and to strike the Fancies of the Common 
People, viz. : 

" 1. Several great Ships, deeply laden with English 
Merchants, all sinking in the Ocean ; and upon the Ocean 
where they sink is written. Mare del Zur, or the South-Sea. 

" 2. Twelve English Cars, with each of them two Old 
Women going to Execution, and over tbeir Heads written, 
Den gross Copmans, or the Great Merchants, which some 
say, in English may be call'd Dire . . ors. 



476 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

" Whether this is true or no, we do not affirm ; for we 
come to inquire of, not to inform, the Oracle. But let that 
be as it will, my Questions to you are plain, if you can 
give a plain honest Answer, such as may be depended 
upon, Magnus Apollo shall be one of the least Compli- 
ments the Town shall bestow upon you. 

" 1. Will Petitions be presented to the Parliament, 
■when assembled, to pray them to make Enquiry into the 
Conduct of those People, who, last Session, were estab- 
lish'd anew,^ and who have since been entrusted to such a 
Degree with the Estates and Fortunes of the weak People 
of the Town ? Or ivill they not f 

" 2. Will the Proprietors of the Redeemables, etc. com- 
monly call'd Annuitants, make Application for Relief 
against the Company ? Or will they not f 

" 3. Will the Subscribers on the several Subscriptions 
lose the Money they have paid into the Company upon 
their first Subscribing, rather than stand to their Sub- 
scriptions, and take the Stock at 400 ? Or will they not 9 ^ 

"4. Will the Borrowers, to whom the Company lent 
Money upon their Stock, after the Rate of 400 percent, re- 
deem their Stock, and repay the Money ? Or will they not 9 

" 5. Will the Company make any new Proposals to the 
Parliament, in order to Satisfy the People ? Or, will 
they insist upon the Reasonableness of their last Offers, 
and expect the Event ? 

'' 6. Will the Company declare a New Dividend for 
Christmas Half-year, before they come to have the Reso- 
lutions of the Parliament in their Favour, or otherwise ; 
or, will they stay to see what the Parliament shall resolve 
before they meddle with it? 

" 7. Will Paper Credit revive any more? And can the 
Parliament do any Thing to restore it as it was before? 
And if they should, Will it be better for us, or worse ? 

" 8. Will the Contract stand good, which was said to be 
made between the Bank and the South-Sea Company, to 

' Let it be further investigated as to whether there M^as a reorgani- 
zation of the company tliat was interested in Raleigh's voyage, 
aheady considered, and in which, as Bacon says, many lost their 
fortunes. See p. 887. 

'■^ We have seen that the adjustment of Bacon's effects went by 
the King's direction to the Lord Treasurer Cranfield as referee. We 
may yet see that the combined influences against Bacon grew to be 
such as to justify him in abandoning even a good defence. 



THEEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 477 

take three Millions, three Quarters, of their Stock, at 400 
pel' cent, or near it ? Or ivill they not? 

" 9. Who now best deserve the Name of Old W — men, 
the Directors of the Bank, or the Directors of the South- 
Sea Company ? 

'^ 10. Is it not possible to dissolve this projected Scheme 
of the SoTith-Sea, and yet to have the Property and Ad- 
vantages of the Proprietors be preserv'd in other Hands, 
and under better Management? 

" These material Questions we desire you may Answer 
us by yourself, or your Representative, in your next 
Journal ; and we must tell you, that upon a substantial 
Answer, very much of your Credit will depend ; for if 
nothing can be done or said to relieve us, in the present 
Distress of our Stock, we shall have as little Opinion of 
your Work, as we had of the Dir . . . ors themselves, 

" We have many other significant Things to bring 
before your Eminences, but do not think fit to trouble 
you with too many at a Time ; besides, we know it is not 
l^roper to ask you Questions of what tlie Parliament will, 
or will not, may or may not, do or determine, at this 
Time, in an Affair of such Consequence. We take it upon 
ourselves to say, we believe the Parliament will do all 
that lyes in them to establish a better Understanding 
among us ; which will be, for aught we know, the only 
Way that is left to save the Property of the Adventurers, 
and tbe Credit of the Company. But whether even the 
Parliament itself can effectually do these Things or not, 
we cannot tell. 

" No doubt, it would be of great Service, at this Criti- 
cal Juncture, to establish a new and mutual Confidence 
between the Company and the World of Subscribers which 
are now concern'd with them ; and as this shall, or shall 
not, be brought to pass, the Credit of *the Stock will neces- 
sarily rise or fall. How this shall be done, you will be a 
greater Conjurer than we take you for, if you can tell. 
However, if you know any Thing, we pray you to com- 
municate it, for the Good of your Neighbors and Friends.^ 

" Anthony Tom Eichakd." 

' In earlier pages we have noted Bacon's statement in a Promus 
Note and elsewhere that nothing comes unawares to him, and that 
long before he casts what may be. There are reasons to believe 
that he carried along with his years an undisclosed literary lecord. 



478 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

This article was dated November 26tli, 1720, as we have 
seen. The next is dated December 3d, and shows the 
great necessity for carrying these matters with secrecy in 
the nation's councils, and ends thus :* *^ Depend upon it, 
that either the Town knows nothing of the Schemes that 
are on Foot, or those that have them in their Hands, are 
not worthy of being trusted with tliem. Secrecy is the 
Life of such Councils.^ To expose them beforehand, 
would be to signify to the World, that they are not equal 
to the Trust, and know not what they have to do ; for to 
expose the Schemes is to destroy the Schemes. Assure 
yourself, that what is doing is no more known to these 
Men, than to the Czar of Muscovy, or to the Grand 
Seignior ; and I refer you to the Issue of Things, to judge 
who is in the right. — Your 'Friend and Servant, All- 
Hide." 

Was Bacon's scheme of the New Atlantis, as already 
intimated, in some way tacked to legislative projects for 
revenue, and in which Buckingham — the great King 
Screen — was also irfvolved ? and do we here reach the true 
Thread of the Labyrinth ? ' 

Bacon's secret scheme for revenue subsequent to Salis- 
bury's death, the papers concerning which xVIr., Spedding 
supposes to be lost, has already fallen under review. Did 
it concern discovery and trade to the South Sea? Lord 
Bacon, through colonization, evidently possessed the hope 
of ultimately becoming, either as governor, bishop, or in 
some central way, the operative head of his great life 
scheme, the New Atlantis. Let the reader here reperuse 
Bacon's speech touching l^rowned Mineral Works at p. 18. 
In it he may see why the true author of the Defoe litera- 
ture gave so large attention to the criminal element. In 
our quotation from the Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 21, 
we find Mare del Zur, or the South Sea, in the foregoing 
article mentioned, named as a possible location for the 

Otherwise what does he mean when he speaks of breaking the order of 
time ? 

^ We have seen that Bacon recommended his scheme for revenue 
to be so carried. See pp. 235 and 236. 

2 This very sentence will be ofL found used by Bacon. 

2 We can see reasons why Bacon would not wish these matters 
disclosed even after his fall, as they would have brought to light 
his literary methods before the chosen time. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 479 

iN'ew Atlantis.^ We have seen that the voyage of the New 
Atlantis opens abruptly and takes its course by way of the 
South Sea to China and Japan. 

In 1711 Harley introduced into Parliament a bill in ref- 
erence to trade to the South Sea, and concerning which 
Lee, vol. i., p. 179 says : " Public credit still continued 
in a state of great exhaustion, funds were required for the 
carrying on of the war, and for paying off the debts of 
the kingdom. The Parliament was in session, and it was 
the duty of Harley, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to 
propose the necessary ways and means. His life was not 
considered to be out of danger until the end of Hve weeks, 
and he would not entrust his colleagues with the secret of 
his intended measures. After the ■ House of Commons 
had been compelled to adjourn for several days on account 
of his absence, he ventured, though still very weak from 
his wounds, and laid before Parliament his project for 
retrieving the tinances, by a trade to the South Seas. Th@ 
proposal was approved, though Lord Kochester, and some 
other of the ministers, did all in their power to defeat it.'' 

We shall claim this as an attempt to enact a thwarted 
scheme of the Baconian period, or at least a scheme 
which served as the occasion for putting forth undisclosed 
literature connected therewith, and which is yet to be 
known as Bacon's Utopia, or Poetical Commonwealth of 
the Defoe Period. His original scheme having failed, he, 
in our mentioned quotation from the Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, p. 21, says: "I will yet, to satisfy and please 
myself, make an Utopia of mine own, a New Atlantis, a 
poetical commonwealth of mine own," etc. 

In 1720 the South Sea bubble, so called, is said to have 
burst. There seems to be but little definitely known 
concerning it. And what is known seems to have been 
drawn chiefly from the various phases of this literature. 
But the scheme was, probably, to a certain extent enacted. 

We next introduce an article which, we think, concerns 
the Duke of Buckingham. It bears date April 8th, 1721, 
and is as folloAvs : 

" A. J., April 8. — Sir, — It is a Maxim formed upon the 
Experience of many Ages, that Laws and Eules of Govern- 

* We have seen that the Anatomy of Melancholy was rcissutd in 
two volumes after Bacon's fall and in 1621. 



480 THREAD OF THE LABYllINTH. 

menfc are like Nets which catch the small Fish, but the 
greater break thro'. Cobwebs catch the little Flies, 
but the Wasps and the Hornets tear all before them, and 

go CLEAR/ 

" That it is so in the Fisherman's Art^ is true, literally, 
as it is in Politics symbolically : But the Fisherman's 
Answer is, that for great Fish, who are too big for their 
Nets, they have other Methods ; that they have Fisgigs, 
Harping Irons, Eunners, Spears, Darts, "and sucli like, 
with which they strike the Dolplmi, the Shark, the Por- 
pus, the Gra7npus, and the Whale: By these the dex- 
trous Managers conquer the most powerful Sea Monsters 
they meet with, even such Creatures whose bulk is terrible 
to look on,^ and threatens to overset* the very Ship itself, 

^ Bacon in one of his Apophthegms says : " One of the Seven 
was wont to say ; That laws were like cobioebs ; inhere the small flies 
were caught, and the great brake thorough." (Bacon's Literary Works, 
vol. ii., p. 150.) In a letter to Buckingham, November 26th, 1619, 
he says : " But yet I hope the corruption and practice upon the Ore 
te/ius, and the rectifying of Rowland's credit, will satisfy my Lords 
upon the former proofs ; for I would be very sorry that these new 
defendants (which, except one or two, are the smaller flies) should be 
in the net, and the old defendants, which are the greater flies, should 
get through." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 63.) And in another 
letter to Buckingham in the following February, p. 81, he says : 
" Mr. Attorney growetli pretty pert with me of late, and I see well 
who they are that maintain him. But be they flies, or be they 
wasps, I neither care for buzzes nor stings, most especially in any- 
thing that concerneth my duty to his Majesty or my love to your 
Lordship." See, please, this letter, and which concerns Cranfield, 
while the first concerns the Dutch, we think, mentioned as sufferers 
in the foregoing article. It opens thus : " I know well his Majesty 
taketli to heart this business of the Dutch, as he hath great reason, 
in respect of both honour and profit ; and because my first letter was 
written in the epitasis, or troui)le of the business, and my second in 
the beginning of the catastrophe, or calming thereof (wherein never- 
theless I was fain to bear up strongly into the weather, before the 
calm followed), and since every day hath been better and better, I 
thought good to signify so much, that his Majesty may be less in 
suspense." Let these letters be here called into relation and looked 
at with care. 

"^ As to the fisherman's art, see our quotation from The Pilgrim's 
Progress, p. 69. 

^ In the play of The Tempest Miranda says : 

" Mira. 'Tis a villain, sir, 

I do not love to look on." 

—Act i., sc. 2, p. 34. 

•* Among some private notes made by Bacon, in 1621-22, concern- 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 481 

are conquer'd and reduc'd by small Shallops, well mann'd, 
and farnish'd wifch proper Powers and Instruments for the 
Work. 

" It is observ'd that where these Men stick a Whale, or 
any other monstrous Creature, and fix the Harping Iron 
in him, immediately they vere out their Line, — let the 
Creature go, and give him all the whole Sea to fling and 
roll himself in, — as if he had got clear of them, and 
escaped their Hands. But still the bearded Dart sticks 
close to his Flesh, he feels the Wound that stings and 
torments him ; he is struck inwardly with mortal Terror, 
and dyes, or stains, the Ocean with his Blood ; till at 
last, spent with the Violence of his own Rage, exhausted 
by the Loss of Blood and Spirits, the vigilant Harpooners 
begin to draw in their Line, and he comes vanquish 'd 
into their Hands, feeble and dying ; and is guided by a 
Thread to the Stage appointed for his Destruction. 

" Great Offenders in the State, whose Power and Influ- 
ence make them appear terrible and monstrous ; who 
seem to defy Legislatures, and Legislators ; who, sur- 
rounded with Friends and Followers, Dependants upon 
them, and Sharers in the Spoils of their Country, look 
formidable to those that offer to attack them, tho' 
with the legal Instruments of the Grovernment ; even 
these, some Times, are struck by the wise and vigilant 
Guides of the Laws, in such a Manner, that the Guilt 
cleaves to them like a Wound in their Vitals, like a Dart 
stuck through their Liver, and they can never get it off'. 

^' They flounce and roll about in the Ocean of Civil 
Power/ and make use of their publick Figure, and the 
formidable Weapons of Gifts, Friends, Preferments, etc. 
and by these make many a Skreen^ for them, but the 
faithful Patriots who pursue their Blow* wisely, avoiding 

ing Buckingham, and hereafter quoted, we find the following : 
" Whale not, he will overturn boat or bark, or admiral or other." 
(Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 352.) 

' This thought has a relation to the ''Tale of a Tub," later to 
be considered. 

^ As to this use of the word screen, see The Tempest, p. 339. 

^ Through all of these writings let the word " blow" and the word 
" blot" be noted, for they are Bacon's words, with rarely a synonym ; 
as, "the blow of fortune," "the blow of gunpowder," "it were 
too late for the law to take a blow before it gives." In his essay 
entitled "Of Empire," he says: " For there is no question but a 

16 



482 THREAD OF THE LABYRIK-TH. 

the Force of their Power ; lye still, give them Room to 
play, till they find them gradually tir'd, with the fruitless 
Labour of escaping by their Bluster and Rage ; and then 
the Guilt, like the Harpoon, or Harpoon-Iron, sticking 
fast in their Vital Part (Conscience), they follow it Home, 
and renew the Wound, as the strength to get clear of it 
declines ; and thus, at last, the greatest criminals, are 
brought to Justice, and the meanest innocent Subject 
triumphs over them, with a Conquest that can never be 
retrieved. 

** Great Offenders in the State are Devourers, who sweep 
all before them, like a great Flood in Time of Harvest ; 
and 'tis the Wisdom of a Legislature to make proportion'd 
Provision, that such Monsters should never be suffer' d to 
grow too great. They are a sort of Thieves, that dwelling 
within Doors, rob the House with the help of that very 
Power, and with those very Weapons which they are en- 
trusted with for the Defence of it. 

" It is but a little while since a happy Law was made 
in E'tigJand, that Servants robbing their Masters, should 
be punish' d as Felons ; that is to say, were to be esteem'd 
Thieves, equally with those who attempted the House 
from without. And I remember a learned and upright 
Judge, summing up the Evidence on the Tryal in this 
kind of Offence, was pleased to explain very wisely the 
Justice of that Law ; representing, that by how much 
that Family had the greater Confidence in the Servant, 
and entrusted him within Side of the Bolts and Bars, 
which were furnished to defend them against Violence, — 
by which he had Opportunity not only to rob the House, 
and go out freely to make his Escape, but also to open 

just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is 
a lawful cause of a war." And in the plays we have the expressions 
" the blow of the law," " the blow of justice," etc. And see The 
Tempest, p. 327. As to the word "blot," he in Book 8, ch. 1 of 
the De Augmentis, gives and explains the proverb " He that in- 
structs a scorner gets to himself shame, and he that rebukes the 
wicked gets himself a blot." See the word as used in some of the 
sonnets. See Sonnets 28, 36, 92, 95. In Addison, vol. iii., p. 147, 
we have : " We therefore very often find, that persons the most 
accomplished in ridicule, are those who are very shrewd at hitting 
a blot, without exerting anything masterly in themselves." And 
see p. 161. In this article may be found the word " slips," another 
permanently used Baconian word for any deviation from the path 
of rectitude. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 483 

the Doors and let in other Villains, assisting them to rob, 
and perhaps murder his Master ;— by so much the more 
Criminal was the Offender, and so much the more just 
was the Severity of his Punishment ; the Household 
being secure in his Fidelity, and sleeping quietly in Con- 
fidence of his being honest to them. 

'* Exactly parallel to this is the Case of those great 
Officers of State, who being entrusted by a Government 
with the Administration of Affairs, and in whom the 
Sovereign, and perhaps the Subjects too, having a general 
Confidence, repose the Safety of themselves, and of all 
that belongs to them, abuse the Confidence, and, under 
the Cloak of an unsuspected Fidelity to their King and 
Country, give themselves a loose in secret clandestine 
Treachery ; enrichiug themselves with the Plunder of 
the Nation, which entrusts them with its Safety, and 
using that Power which is given them for the publick 
Good, as a Skreen to Corruption, and a Protection to 
their Emissaries and Confederates, in devouring those 
whom they are employed to preserve. Shall such Offeud- 
ers go free? Shall "such be cleared by Niceties, and 
the Help of Numbers, from Publick National Vengeance ? 
Are they not infinitely more Criminal than an open 
Trayfcor, who boldly takes Arms in the Field, declares his 
Treason, and offers to Maintain it by the Sword ? This 
latter is a Traytor 'tis true ; and, when subdued by just 
Power, is brought to the Stroke of Justice, as he de- 
serves ; but the secret Traytor, who, under the Favour of 
the Trust reposed in him, who is employ'd for the defence 
of the Government, and has the Weight of the publick 
Prospej'ity resting upon his Shoulders, in whose supposed 
Wisdom and Probity the whole Nation rested secure, but 
who, under the Cover of that Trust, with the Reputation 
of that Fidelity, swallows up, and devours the People 
who entrust him ; he is a thousand Times the moie 
Guilty of the Two, and deserves the more severe Punish- 
ment. 

'' Apply this, Sir, in such a Manner as Reason and 
Justice shall direct you. I am, Sir, your faithful Monitor, 
Sempronicus." (Lee, vol. ii., p. 359.) 

We now give place to part of an article a few days 
earlier in date than that just given. 

" A. J., A^ril 1.— Sir, The Liberty of speaking Truth 



484 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

has been a kind of Eight, annex'd not by Custom and 
Eight only, but by the ]^ature of the Thing, to the 
Privileges of English Men ; and I hope we may claim our 
Share in that Liberty. We see Men every Day take the 
unlawful Liberty of speaking Falsehood, and that such 
pass with Impunity among us, unless it be now and then 
an unprofitable Lye, that pinches some Men of Fame and 
Power ; and then we find them exerting that Power, to 
punish the Authors, Publishers, etc. 

'* But as 1 resolve to say Nothing to you, nor perswade 
you to say any Thing to the World but what is Truth, 
I hope we may do this with Safety. If this Truth should 
pinch* any Man who is able to resent it, and our Ears 
should be calTd Horns,'' I know not what we shall do 
then. But we must venture that. 

^' First, I observe to you, that, in my Opinion His 
speaking Truth to say, that he that would Skreen a 
Guilty Knave from Public Justice, is as bad as the Guilty 
Knave who he would endeavour to Skreen ; and tho' 
he cannot be punish'd as the Guilty Knave may be, yet 
he shall always be look'd upon by me as a Confederate in 
the Knavery which he endeavours to prevent the enquiry 
after." ^ 

In vol. vii. of Bacon's Letters, pp. 348-53, will be 
found important private notes, made in March, 1621-22, 
by Bacon, touching Buckingham and the King and Prince ; 
and in order to make them the more private they were in 
Greek characters. Beginning at p. 350, we quote as 
follows : 

" There be mountebanks, as well in the civil body as in 
the natural ; I ever served his Majesty with modesty ; no 
strouting, no undertaking. 

* See this word " pincli" as used in tlie play of The Tempest. 
And Bacon uses the expression " this was as grievous to him as to 
pinch away the quick flesh from his body." (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
Iv., p. 4.) 

2 Promus, 2. Good means against badd, homes to crosses. Promus, 
1G20. (A fair pair of horns.) In As You Like It, Act iii., sc. 3, 
p. 212, we have : "^ As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is 
said, — many a man knows no end of his goods : right ; many a man 
has good horns, and knows no end of them." 

^ And see articles under date May 27th and June 24th, 1721. (Lee, 
vol. ii., pp. 379-93.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 485 



(( 



Seneca saith, Tarn otii debet constare ratio quam 
negotii. So I make his Majesty oblation of both. 

'" For envy, it is an almanack of the old year, and as a 
friend of mine said, the Parliament died penitent towards 
me. 

*' Of my offence far be it from me to say, dat veniam 
corvis, vexat censura columbas : but I will say that I have 
good warrant for ; they tvere not the greatest offenders in 
Israel, upon whom the wall of Shilo felV 

" My Lord hath done many things to show his great- 
ness, this of mine is one of them that shows his goodness.^ 

" I am like ground fresh. If 1 be left to myself I will 
graze and bear natural philosophy : but if the King will 
plough me up again, and sow me with anything, I hope 
to give him some yield. 

" Kings do raise and pull down and restore ; but the 
greatest work is restoring. 

" For my part, I seek an otiuw, and, if it may be, a fat 
otium. 

'' I am said to have a feather in my head. I pray God 
some have not mills in their head, that grind not well. 

" I am too old, and the seas are too long, for me to 
double the Cape of Good Hope.'^ 

" Ashes are good for somewhat, for lees, for salts. But 
I hope I am rather embers than dead ashes, having the 
heat of good affections under the ashes of my fortunes. 

" Your Majesty hath power : I have faith. Therefore 
a miracle may be soon wrought. 

" I would live to study, and not study to live ; yet I 
am prepared for date ololum Belisario ; and I that have 
borne a bag can bear a wallet. 

" For my Pen. 

*' If active, 1. The recompiling of laws. 

2. The disposing of wards and generally 

education of youth. 

3. Limiting the jurisdiction of courts, and 

prescribing rules for every of them. 
Reglement of Trade. ^ 

^ That is, Buckingliam's conduct toward him in his fall shows 
clearly what kind of goodness he entertained toward him. 

' What, please, does he mean by this expression ? 

3 And see the Defoe literature upon the subject of trade, and also 
as to the education or training of youth. 



486 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

**If contemplative, 1. Going on with the story of H. 

the 8th. 
General Treatise de Legihis et 

Justitia. 
The Holy War. 
*'Por my L. of Buck. 
" This I rank high amongst his favours. To the K. of 
him ; that the goodness of his nature may strive with the 
goodness of his fortune. 

**He hath but one fault, and that is that you cannot 
mar him with any accumulating of honours upon him. 

" Now after this sunshine, a little dew ; that same 
warr*. 

" Whale not, he will overturn boat or bark, or admiral 
or other/ 

'* For the Prince. 
" Ever my chief patron. 

** The work of the Father is creation ; of the Son re- 
demption. 

*' You would have drawn me out of the fire ; now out 
of the mire. 

*' To ask leave of the King to kiss the Prince's hands, 
if he be not now present." 

Following tlie breacli of the Spanish match, and on 
November 25th, 1623, same vol., p. 442, Bacon wrote 
thus to Buckingham. 

" Excellent Lord : I send Mr. Packer to have ready, 
according to the speech I had with your Grace, my two 
suits to his Majesty, the one for a full pardon, that 1 may 
die out of a cloud ; the other for the translation of my 
honours after my decease. I hope his Majesty will have 
compassion on me, as he promised me he would. My 
heart telleth me that no man hath loved his Majesty and 
his service more entirely, and love is the law and the 
prophets. I ever rest," etc. 

'' Fr. St. Alb an." 

Let also the private notes made by Bacon as to Buck- 
ingham at about this time, and found between j^p. 442 
and 448, same volume, be read. 

On p. 445 we have : 

2 See Defoe article, p. 480 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 487 

*' You have now tied a knot, as I wished you ; clii no 
da nudo lyierde punto. A jolly one, The Parliament. 

*' Although I could have wished that before a Parlia- 
ment some remarkable thing had been done whereby the 
world might have taken notice that yon stand the same 
in grace and power with the K. But there is time enough 
for that between this and Parliament. And besides the 
very prevailing for a Parliament sheweth. your power with, 
the K. 

'' You march bravely, do you draw up your troops so 
well ? 

*' One of these days I shall turn my L. Brooke, and say 
to you brave Bu. 

" I will commend you to all others, and censure you 
only to yourself.^ 

" You bowP well, if you do not horse your bowl an 
hand too much. You know the fine bowler is knee almost 
to ground in the delivery of the cast. 

*' JSTay and the King will put a hook in the nostrils of 



' Is not this just what Bacon did as to Buckingham ? and hence 
were men deceived by his words concerning him. At the writing 
of the play of The Tempest he thought he had him at bay, as 
already stated. 

2 In Richard II., Act iii., sc. 4, p. 97, we have : 

" 1 Lady. Madam, w^e'll play at bowls. 

Queen. 'Twill make me tliink, the world is full of rubs, 
And that my fortune runs against the bias." 

Let the following, from Love's Labour's Lost, Act v., sc. 2. p. 460, 
bo called carefully into relation with a later quotation from Bacon 
touching Alexander : 

" Cost. [To Nath.'\ O ! sir, you have overthrown Alisander the con- 
queror ! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for this : 
your lion, that holds his poll-ax sitting on a close-stool, will be given 
to Ajax : he will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror, and afeard to 
speak ! run away for shame, Alisander. [Nath. retires.'] There, 
an't shall please you ; a foohsh mild man ; an honest man, look you, 
and soon dash'd ! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth ; 
and a very good bowler : but, for Alisander, alas ! you see how 'tis ; 
— a little o'erparted : — But there are Worthies a-coming will speak 
their mind in some other sort." 

As to the word " close-stool" here used, seep. 455. And see Addi- 
son, vol. iv., p. 372. And as to the "lion" here referred to, the 
political lion, see pp. 162-66 and 172-75. Note in the plays and in 
Addison the words "patches," "petticoat," "drum," "tailor," 
"pudding," "pancake," etc. 



488 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

Spain, and lay a foundation of greatness here to his chil- 
dren in these west parts. The call for me, it is book- 
learning. You know the King was wont to do me the 
honour as to say of me de miiiimis non curat lex : if good 
for anything for great volumes. I cannot thridd needles 
so well. 

" The Chamb. For his person not effectual ; but some 
dependancies he hath which are drawn with him. Be- 
sides he can take no reputation from you. 

" Montgomery is an honest man and a good observer. 
Can you do nothing with Naunton ? Who would think 
now, that I name N. to my L. of Buc. ? But I speak to 
you point-blank : no crooked end, either for myself or for 
others turn. 

'* The French treaty, besides the Alliance, is to have 
three secret art. : The one, the protection of the liberty of 
Germany and to avoid from it all forces thence, like to 
that which was concluded between the Princes of Ger- 
many and H. 2, the last King except H. 4th of value in 
France, for the race of the Valois were fait7iecmts ; and in 
the name of Germany to conclude the Grisons and Valto- 
line. The second, the conserving of the liberties of the 
Low-Countries. The third, the free trade into all parts 
of both East and West Indies. All these imj^ort no in- 
vasive hostility, but only the nniting of the states of 
Europe against the growing ambition of Spain." * 

^ The following from Addisryi, vol. i., p. 535, may concern 
Bacon's undisclosed design. '-The church of the Franciscan 
convent is famous for the monument of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian the First, wliich stands in the midst of it. It was erected to 
him by his grandson Ferdinand the First, who probably looked 
upon this emperor as the founder of the Austrian greatness. For 
as by his own marriage he annexed the Low Countries to the house 
of Austria, so by matching his son to Joan of Arragon he settled on 
his posterity the Kingdom of Spain, and by the marriage of his 
grandson Ferdinand got into his family the kingdoms of Bohemia 
and Hungary. This monument is only honorary, for the ashes of 
the emperor lie elsewhere. On the top of it is a brazen figure of 
Maximilian on his knees, and on the sides of it a beautiful bas-relief 
representing the actions of this prince. His whole history is digested 
into twenty-four square panels of sculpture in bas-relief ; the sub- 
ject of two of them is his confederacy with Henry the Eighth, and 
the wars they made together upon France. On one side of this 
monument is a row of very noble brazen statues much bigger than 
the life, most of them represent such as were some wa}^ or other 
related to Maximilian. Among the rest is one that the fathers of 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 489 

And on p. 447 we have : 

" At least the going on with the Parliament hath 
gained this, that the discourse is ceased, My L. of Bii. 
hath a great task. His head is full : either the match 
breaks or his fortune breaks. He was [wont to] run his 
courses with the stream of the King's ways ; but now he 
goeth crossway, he may soon leese his own way. 

** If your Gr. go not now constantly on for religion 
and round dealing with Spain, men will either think they 
were mistaken in you, or that you are brought about ; or 
that your will is good but you have no power. 

'^Your Grace hath a great party against you and a 
good rough way. The Spaniards hate you : The Papists 
little better. In the opinion of the people you are green, 
and men yet at a gaze. Particulars are for the most part 
discontented friends, or reconciled enemies : and the nice 
dividing between the sol orient and Occident.''^ 

And so Bacon, at the writing of the play of The Tem- 
pest, thought he had Buckingham at bay. His secret 
feelings toward him may be clearly gathered, we think, 
from the foregoing, and engendered not merely by Buck- 
ingham's now rash and profligate courses, but, if our posi- 
tion be true, he was the chief mover in robbing Bacon of his 
estate, by reason of which he now feared him, and stood at 
every avenue to beat aside, not merely his pardon, but any 
influence that might bring a restoration of the royal 
favor. 

Bacon's laudations both during and following his 
troubles, and even to those whom he knew to be engaged 
in robbing him, make his conduct inexplicable to many.^ 

tlie convent tell us represents King Arthur, the old British King. 
But what relation had that Arthur to Maximilian ? I do not ques- 
tion, therefore, but it was designed for Prince Arthur, elder brother 
of Henry the Eighth, wlio had espoused Catherine, sister of Maxi- 
milian, whose divorce afterwards gave occasion to such signal revo- 
lutions in England. This church was built by Ferdinand the First." 
Why upon his reputed death were Bacon's papers sent to The Hague. 
See p. 184. His essay entitled " Of Empire" throws some light, 
we think, in the direction of his purposes. And see Addison, vol. 
iv., pp. 340-64, as to the Spanish monarchy. 

' In his Essay entitled " Of Praise," Bacon says : " Some praise 
conies of good wishes and respects, which is a form due in civility 
to kings and great persons, laudando iwacipere ; when b}' telling 
men what they are, they represent to them what they should be." 
And see p. 254. 



490 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

In connection with this thought we introduce tlie fol- 
lowing article, under date November 16th, 1723 : 

^' A. J., Nov. 16. — Sir, I had a great Mind, a long 
while, to come into the Eoad ^ of the Times, and Eail at 
my Superiors ; but it has occurred to me, that there are 
Abundance of Ways and Methods to be considered of, 
for the decent Performance of sach an important Work, 
particularly that of always preserving the Main Chance — 
which you know Mr. App, is a nice Concern, — I mean 
Safety. I have seen a great many witty Fellows have 
miscarried in this laudable Work, and therefore I must 
act with the greater Caution. 

" Some with greater Plainjiess than Prw^ewce have spoken 
Bold Trutlis, which the Covernments they live under Would 
not bear ; and they have been punished for their Folly. 

*' Some with greater Boldness than Truth have spoken 
damn'd Lyes, which no Government that they lived under 
Ought to bear ; and those have been punished for their 
Knavery. 

''The best Character the first Sort have obtained, has 
been to pass for honest well meaning Fools; and even 
the Party whom they Served, and Suffered for, would at 
best only Pity them^ but never Stand by them. Remem- 
ber that too, Mr. App! which is sufficient Warning 
against ruining one's self for a Party, or a Cause. 'Tis 
much better to be Envied, than Pitied in the World. 

" On the other Hand, the worst Character the Second 
Sort have obtained, has only added that of Knaves to the 
Fool, and yet they have perhaps been as much pitied as 
the former ; for the Knaves, of the two, have generally 
the better Luck. 

" Now all these Ways having been Tried, I see no En- 
couragement to vent my Gall that Way. But if I fall upon 
7ny Masters, I think I must begin with Panegyrick, for 
as two Negatives make an Affirmative, why should not 
two Affirmatives make a very good Negative ? The ex- 
tremes of Panegyrick ought no doubt to be accepted for 
Satyr, and perhaps are the highest accesses of Satyr, 
which an Author, or Poet can arrive to ;'^ and if the 

^ To this use of the word '' road " we have already called atten- 
tion. Please see p. 388. 

■^ Bacon thus often ended the member of a sentence with the prep- 
osition "to," preceded by the word " arrive." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 491 

Persons so dealt with cannot see it, they must be blinded 
with Folly not many Degrees above Idiotism. When 
Herod made a Speech, and was applauded as a God, his 
Crime was, not the applauding him in that Manner ; bi^t 
his absurd Pride, in accepting the Surfeiting Praise. 
Alexander the Great, 'tis said, had the Folly secretly to 
wish to be flattered, and yet he with Diligence endeav- 
oured to shun its being known. That was his Prudence/ 
Some of the Roman Emperors, the most Brutal of them, 
did openly covet it ; but Augustus, Vespasian, Titus, 
and all the wisest of them, took the offer of it to be cast- 
ing the utmost Contempt upon them, and therefore re- 
jcted it.^ 

" Concluding then, that the extravagant Elevations and 
Raptures, — in compliment to the personal Virtues of 
great Men, who understand nothing of Virtue in Prac- 
tice, — must be allowed to be the keenest Satyr that can 
be written ; — why should not I try to abuse some honest 
great Man or other that Way? Suppose I should write a 
Panegyrick upon Modesty, and dedicate it to her Excel- 
lency, Madam, the Countess de Sally Salisbury f Would 
it not do very well? Or another upon Frugality, and 
Inscribe it to his Grace of [Wharton]^ and his Grace of 
[Ormond] ^ or any other Man of Fortune, who may have 
Glass Windows, thro' their great Estates almost as soon 
as they were of Age to possess them ? AVould not those 
be taken for Satyr ? 

'' Suppose I was to write a Book in Praise of Honesty, 
and Dedicate it to Sir Clo nsiantine'] P[Mpps]^ or in Praise of 
Generosity, and Present it to a Lord Mayor ; perhaps 
these great Men might be affronted at me, and take it for 
Satyr upon them. 

'' If I should write in Recommendation of Voluminous, 
and Contentious Writing, and send it in a Penny Post 
Letter to a certain dignified O U^rgy] man, or Praise con- 

' Note the emphasis placed in all of these writings upon the word 
*' prudence." Bacon sa^^s : " And surely 1 do best allow of a division 
of that kind, though in more familiar and scholastic terms ; namely, 
that these be the two parts of natural philosophy, — the Inquisition 
of causes, and the Production of effects ; Speculative, and Opera- 
tive ; Natural Science, and Natural Prudence." See Phil. Works, 
vol. iii., p. 351. 

'^ We remember to have seen these identical vievv^s expressed by 
Bacon, though we are not now able to give the reference. 



492 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

founding of Principles with Contraries in Practice, What 
would this Dignifiedship say to me? 

*^ In a word, I am convinced, Mr. App, this will do it. 
Frobatum est. True Britojs^, No. 1629. From hence- 
forward then expect — when I write in Praise, — when I 
swell in Panegyrick, — it is all Satyr, and done to abuse 
my Superior ; according to the laudable Example of all 
the Model Journals and publick Prints, that have gone 
before me, — Sir Dick, as well as the Duke. 

" In the first Place then, I think to write a long En- 
comium upon the York Buildings^ Lottery ; wherein I 
shall applaud the Equity of drawing Lotteries before they 
are full, — the goodness of Bubble Security, — the Certainty 
of having Prizes, — and the Uncertainty of having them 
paid ; with a great Variety of excellent Observations in 
praise of the excellent Art of managing Mankind, by 
Figures and great Numbers. 

" I thought to have sent you an admirable Poem upon 
the late Harhurgh Lottery,'^ adorned with some Characters 
of Persons, whereby the Injustice done those honest woi- 
thy Gentlemen, might perhaps have appeared to have been 
greater or less than themselves imagine ; but in Charity 
I forbear Treading on the Vanquished. 

'' I have abundance of Panegyrick^ by me, which would 
much exalt the Honour and Glory of our Nation, and 
show us what abundance of Heroes we are like to raise, 
Avithout a War, more than ever rose by the Glory of the 
Field ; and how many brave Officers die annually in the 
Bed of Honour, Drury Lane, more than ever did in a 
Campaign in Flanders or at a Hochstet, and a Ramillies. 

'' In a Word, Mr. Ajyp, I can never want Subject of 
Panegyrick, if Panegyrick may but pass for Satyr : So 

^ Let the reader here and in later articles keep his eye a little 
upon the words "York Buildings," as we shall claim tliem to be 
allusions to Bacon's cherished York House residence, and which 
went into the hands of the Treasurer Cranfield, as mentioned in 
earlier pages. 

"^ See Bacon's allusion to the Dutch in his letter to King James, 
quoted in a recent note, p. 480, and see p. 475. 

3 Bacon says : " And because this is no part of a panegyric, but 
mere story, and that they be so many articles of honour fit to be 
recorded, I will only mention them ; extracting part of them out of 
that you Mr. Speaker have said," (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii,, 
p. 175.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 493 

you may expect for the future I shall be very Civil 
(Saucv) to my Superiors. Yours &c." (Lee. vol. iii., 
p. 204.) 

Our next is a political article on divers sorts of winds, 
and bears date December 21st, 1723, and is as follows : 

" A. J., Dec. 21. — Sir, I thought to have refined a 
little upon the Philosophy of the Winds, and the strange 
Effects which they have upon the Surface of this Globe, 
as well on the Solid as on the Fluid ; and to have taken 
the rise of my Hypothesis from the late Storms, which 
have been so Furious and done so much Damage to our 
Shipping, as well as to our Buildings. But this is so 
ordinary a Subject, or at least offers itself so frequently to 
our Observation, that having so much more Material a 
Subject in my View, I haA^e thought fit to adjourn it till 
the next great Storm, which upon consulting my private 
Barometer, I foretell will not happen till the middle of 
February ; and that thence, to the vernal Equinox, you 
will have some Occasion to put me in Mind of it again. 

" I might also have Dilated my Eloquence here upon 
the natural Reasons, Why Kings should be Windbound at 
Sea ! And why Monarchs, who can turn the Winds of 
Faction and Rebellion, this AYay or that Way, as they 
please, should not be able to stem the Torrent of Wind at 
Sea. (For Air being a convertible Element, may be aptly 
enough styled a Torrent, as well as when it is condensed 
into Water.) But I shall take an Occasion to talk of this 
another Time.^ 

" I desire to speak of Winds now under another kind 
of Explication, namely, as they are Politically, Nationally, 
and Ridiculously considered. For Example ; — 

" When a poor Author or Printer comes under the 
Oppression of a Messenger from his Superiors, and is 

^ Bacon's views as to the winds have been somewhat considered in 
earlier pages. See pp. 48-52. Touching his belief as to wind im- 
prisoned within the earth, we give the further example from Henry 
IV., part 1., Act iii., sc. 1, p. 229, as follows : 
." Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 

In strange eruptions : oft the teeming earth 

Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd 

By the imprisoning of unruly wind 

Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving, 

Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down 

Steeples, and moss-grown towers." 



494 THREAD OF THE LABYKINTH. 

unhappily sent for to answer, for this or that Boldness of 
Expression, or for giving Offence to this or that Ambas- 
sador, and the like ; 'tis an ordinary Thing to say, he has 
had a STOEM upon him.^ 

" When a poor Tradesman Fails, tnrns Insolvent, and 
Calls his Creditors together, 'tis Ordinary to say he is 
under a Cloud ; and when the Clotid breaks upon him in 
a Commission of Bankrupt, 'tis fairly represented by a 
Thunder- Clap. Upon the whole we say he is Blasted^ 'tis 
a Blast upon his Credit ; all which particulars are Stormy 
Things in the main, and have some Place in the Doctrine 
of Winds, as now under Consideration. 

*' There are divers Sorts of Winds too that blow among 
us, hesides those at Sea ; as particularly, there are some- 
times hard Gales, which blow from a Parliamentary Quar- 
ter, such was the Blast from a certain Corner, upon the 
late South- Sea Men, the Hamluryh Lottery Men, and 
others, — which blew a great many of them quite out of 
the House, and well they deserved it indeed, especially 
the Latter, — whom some think should have been blown to 
the Gallows. 

, " There have been several Times strong Gusts (and 
Disgusts) about the Courts of our Monarchs. These have 
overset many a Favourite, before they had been able to 
set their Sails to it ; for (N.B.) Favourites generally 
are so NwiUe in shifting their Sails, that they can Sail 
with any Wind; and 'tis not easy for the Storm to Now 
too hard for them. Sometimes also there is an ugly 
Squally AVind, which rises out of the Monarch's reach, 
and Blows now from this Quarter, now from that, and 
Oversets, not the Favourite only, but the Favourer too. 
This Wind is called a Comitry Gale j 'tis worse than the 
Wind Euroclydon, which we read of, that Ship-wre'cked 
St. Paul; 'tis generally, I say, a Country Gale, and 
whenever it blows hard, it makes the Court a Lee- Shore, 
that is to say, it makes foul Weather at Court. 

'^This Country Gale when it overblows,'' has divers 
Names too, like the Winds at Sea. When the Wind 
freshens at Sea, 'tis first called blowing hard ; then a 
Fret of Wind ; then a Storm ; then a Tempest ; and in 

' See p. 302, and see Bacon's Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 176. 
^ lu The Tempest, Act ii., sc. 3, p. 60, we have : " I hope now 
tliou art not drown'd. Is the storm overblown ?" 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 495 

some Countries 'tis called a Hurricane. So these Country 
Gales go under divers Denominations. If they blow in 
the ordinary Manner, 'tis called, as above, a Country 
Gale; if it increjises, 'tis called a Party Gust, then a 
Faction ; then popular Heat, after that, Fury, Rage, and 
sometimes at last, it comes up to Insurrection, and Revo- 
lution. We have seen all these Winds blow in Etigland 
some Years ago. But of late, blessed be our Fate ! we 
have had good calm Weather at Court, and 'tis hoped it 
may continue so, whatever some True Britons may hope 
to the Contrary. 

*' But to leave these dangerous Corners, we have other 
Winds in England, which like Summer are refreshing, 
comfortable and cooling ; these we call Court Breezes, 
and when they come kindly, and in the ordinary legal 
Course, they bring in very Seasonable Weather with them 
on that Side. To some they Dispense fruitful Pensions, 
plentiful Crops and large Harvests ; according as they are 
skilfully improved by the Persons who receive them from the 
Sovereign's Favour ; — do Good or Evil, according to the 
Merit of the Persons, as Corn sowed produces a good or ill 
Crop, according to the goodness of the Soil.'' 

" Just and wise Governments have always endeavoured 
to distinguish Right in the Dispensing their Favours, 
and cause this Wind to blow as best serves the Interest of 
their Kingdoms and Countries. Tyrants and Designing 
Princes blow hot and cold, this Way, and that Way, as 

* Bacon says : " But those also who are naturally of greater hon- 
esty and principle, when they find no safeguard in their innocence 
(the prince not being able to distinguish truth from falsehood), 
throw off their honesty, and catching the court breezes allow them- 
selves to be carried where they blow." (De Augmentis, ch. 2. 
Book 8.) In the same chapter he also says : " Those again, of 
better principles and dispositions, after finding little security in their 
innocence, their master not knowing how to distinguish truth from 
falsehood, drop their moral honesty, go into the eddy winds of the 
court, and servilely submit to be carried about with them." _ 

* This expression, " goodness of the soil," may be found in many 
places in Bacon's Natural History. And let the word " goodness" 
in both its material and mental sense be noted throughout. In his 
Essay entitled " Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," he says: 
•*I take Goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, 
which is that the Grecians call PJiilanthropia ; and the word 
humanity (as it is used) is a little too light to express ic. Goodness 
I call the habit, and Goodness of Nature the inclination." 



496 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

their secret Designs guide them ; and that is the Reason 
we find their Subjects comphiining of Oppression, Injus- 
tice, breach of Constitution, and the like. These are 
Sfcorms and Tempests in their kind ; and of these I have 
much t(y say in a convenient Season, but not now. Thank 
Heaven we live under a Reign, where there is a perfect 
Calm, the Court Breezes are all Sanative and Wholesome ; 
wisely suited to the good of the whole Country ; the 
Monarch Dispenses his Favours with Justice, and his 
Justice with Clemency, Merit commands Respect, and Men 
of AYorth have always a favourable Gale blowing upon them. 

" I shall set forth the Advantages of such a fair Wind 
in its due Time ; in the mean time I must enter in my 
next upon the ill consequences of those unhappy Things 
in a Government, call'd, contrary Winds. But I must 
defer it, I say, till my next." (Lee, vol. iii., p. 216.) 

We next give place to an article dated February 15th, 
1724, touching some juggling with the King of Spain. 

" A. J., Feb. 15. — Sir, We have had so many Specula- 
tions at Work, and so many Calculators of Times and 
Seasons upon this new Revolution in Spain; that I can- 
not but think the King of Spain has made more Work for 
the Sooth-sa3^ers, than ever Pharaoh King of Egypt, or 
Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon did. 

" I must own, in my Opinion the Reasons, which they 
say the King of Spain has given for his laying down the 
Royal Dignity, are the AVeakest, not to say the Foolishest, 
that ever I met with in History. AVhen his great Pred- 
ecessor Charles the 5tli abdicated, and gave up the Im- 
perial Crown to his second Son Ferdinand, and the Crown 
of Spain to his Eldest Son Philip II., among other 
Reasons he gave for it, These were some, (viz.) That he 
was weakened by Age, worn out with Cares, and many 
Fatigues, and reduced to an infirm State of Body, by a 
declining Health, and Distempers growing Daily upon 
him ; so that he was unable to undergo the Burthen of 
the Government, and the Weight of so many Crowns. 
These Things had some Consideration due to them. It 
was Time for him to apply, if ever, with more than 
ordinary Seriousness to the Thoughts of another Life. 
He had one Foot in the Grave. He was loaden with 
Honour and with Years, and indeed lived but a little 
While after it. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 497 

*' On the other hand, here is a young Monarch, not j/et 
forty Years Old, that has had no Fatigues to go through, 
never went out of his Kingdom, but once into Italy, that 
has had always the Administration of his Affairs in the 
Hands of his Ministry, and the Care of Government as 
much taken off his Hand too as he pleased ; and 3^et he 
lays down his Government, and obliges a Young and 
Beautiful Queen to do the like. Divesting themselves of 
all the Pleasure and Grandeur of a Court, and the Majesty 
and Glory of a Crown, and turning recluse ; contrary to 
the common Principles of Nature, and to all that we can 
Account for in Human Reasoning. 

'' The Reasons his Majesty gives for all this, — so far 
as we have them handed down to us — are, that he may 
give up himself to meditate on Deatli, and to seek his 
Salvation. 

'' Now if these are really the true Reasons, I must con- 
fess, to me, they are very weak ones ; and this makes me 
say, the Doubts which some People have of the Sincerity 
of those Appearances seem also to 7ne, to have better 
Grounds than ordinary. 

" Nor let any one suggest that it is Maltreating the 
King of 8'pain to say those Reasons are weak ; on the 
contrary, I think they are a Testimony of an uncommon 
Respect for the King of Spain , and that I have a great 
Veneration for his Judgment, and for his Experience of 
human Affairs, and therefore cannot readily come into the 
Belief of his quitting the Crown, on Account of Two 
Tilings, which he might as certainly, and effectually have 
looked after with the Crown upon his Head, as he can 
without it ; or else, all the Kings in Eurojje are but in a 
very ordinary Condition, as to the World to come. 

" H the Weight of the Crown was too heavy for his 
Head,^ or there was some ungodly Thing necessary to be 
done by a King of Spain, which other Kings are not 
obliged to ; these indeed are Cases by themselves, but we 
do not see any Ground for either of them. King Philip 
had worn the Crown about Three and Twenty Years ; and, 
in all that time. History does not charge him with any 

_^ Bacon in his Essay entitled " An Essay of a King" says : " A 
King tliat would not feel his Crown too heavy for him, must wear 
it every day, but if he think it too light, lie knoweth not of what 
metal it is made. ' ' 



498 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

Thing so much out of the AVay, as to make us think he 
was very unfit to Reign. We do not hear his Majesty 
charged with Idiotism, or gross Weakness ; and, as to the 
Crown of Spam, I will not insinuate that a King cannot 
wear it with as safe a Conscience, as other Kings wear 
their Crowns. So that 'tis very odd, the King should not 
be able to think of Death, and seek his Salvation, without 
relinquishing his Crown. 

" Now if the Crown of Spain is no more liable to these 
Negatives than other Crowns, What must we say of all the 
Kings of Europe, who occupy the State of Grlory in their 
Degrees? Hard is the Fate of Crowned Heads, if they 
cannot apply themselves to the Things of another World, 
and that with the greatest Seriousness and Diligence, 
without giving up their Crowns. 

*' Dedicating to God is another Word used for this Abdi- 
cation. Now I can by no means believe but that a King 
Dedicating the Power, which he is invested with by his 
administration, effectually to the Service and Glory of 
God, is able to Honour his Creator much more, and it is 
a much better Dedication of himself to God, than any he 
could be capable of in a private retired Capacity. If this 
is not Granted I am ready to support it with good Argu- 
ments, drawn from both Reason and Religion. 

"But on the other Hand, if it is granted, as it must 
be, then the King of Spain laying down his Royal Dig- 
nity, and Divesting himself of his Royal Authority, to 
Dedicate himself to God ; is a kind of Religious incon- 
sistency, to say no worse of it. As to there being a Juggle 
in it at the Bottom and that the Design looks at another 
Crown, that I have nothing to say to just now ; but in 
Favour of all the rest of the Monarchs of the Christian 
World, I must be allowed to say, a King may certainly 
be a Christian, with the Crown upon his Head, as well as 
in a Monastery, or other Retreat ; and may give himself 
a due Latitude of Time to Meditate upon Death, and seek 
his Salvation, notwithstanding the Cares of Government, 
and the Weight of Administration. Nay, if they would, 
as above, apply themselves to Administer their Affairs, in 
the Fear and to the Glory of God, it might be for aught 
I know the best way of seeking their Salvation that they 
could possibly fall into. From whence I must infer, that 
either the King of Spain has been very much imposed 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 499 

upon, or there must be more in it, than we yet hear of." 
(Lee, vol. iii., p. 232.) 

We have at p. 234 expressed an intention of calling 
Bacon's charge in the Owen case into relation with some 
of these Defoe articles, but find that space will not permit. 

We here submit to the reader the question as to whether 
the abdication alluded to in the foregoing article was 
some rumored resignation of Philip the Third during the 
Baconian period, or the actual resignation of Philip the 
Fifth during the Defoe period. Note the allusion here 
mad-e to the age and wife of Philip, and which was true 
as to Philip the Third, but not as to Philip the Fifth. 
Likewise Philip the Fifth actually resigned the crown, and 
on account, as history tells us, of a profound melancholy. 
In what sense, then, '^ a juggle" for another crown ? Was 
the fear here manifested the fear that Spain was juggling 
with James or Buckingham beyond the question of the 
marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta ? AYas it the 
fear that the two crowns were to come under one hat, as 
represented in the play of The Tempest ? The occasion 
of fear from Spain in the Baconian period may be further 
seen in the Britannica article on Spain, vol. xxii., pp. 
330 and 331, and from which we quote the following : 

" The accession of James I. in England gave a con- 
venient opportunity for concluding the long war that had 
been carried on with Elizabeth. English mediation 
brought about a twelve years' truce in 1609 with the 
United Provinces, which amounted to a practical recog- 
nition of their independence. The death of Henry the 
IV. and the regency of Mary de' Medici enabled Lerma to 
arrange an alliance with France, which was cemented by 
a double marriage. Louis XIII. married the Infanta 
Anne of Austria, and Elizabeth of France was betrothed 
to the son and heir of Philip III. For the moment Spain 
occupied a higher position in Europe than it had held 
since the defeat of the iirmada. James I. was weakened 
by quarrels with his Parliament and by the want of a 
definite policy. France under the regency had abandoned 
the attitude of Henry lY. and was distracted by internal 
squabbles. The empire was in the feeble hands of Mathias, 
and the Austrian Hapsburgs were still divided by the 
family jealousies that had arisen from the deposition of 
Rudolph II. The Turks had declined since the days of 



500 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

Soli man the Magnificent with a rapidity characteristic of 
Oriental powers. In the midst of these states Spain, sub- 
ject to an apparently absolute monarchy, enjoyed much 
the same prestige as in the best days of Philip II. With 
the consciousness of power the old ambitions revived. An 
arrangement was being discussed for the recognition of 
the Archduke Ferdinand as the successor of Mathias in 
the Austrian territories. Philip III., however, advanced 
a claim to Hungary and Bohemia on the ground that his 
mother was a daughter of Maximillian II., whereas Ferdi- 
nand was only descended from that emperor's brother. 
The claim was by no means indisputable, but it was incon- 
venient to Ferdinand to have to discuss it.^ He agreed 
therefore to purchase the support of Spain by ceding 
Alsace, and the vacant imperial fief of Finale in Italy 
(1617), and on these terms he succeeded in effecting his 
designs. Thus a prospect was opened to Spain of con- 
necting its Italian possessions with the Netherlands and of 
forming a compact Spanish dominion in central Europe. 
At the same time the old policy of advancing Roman 
Catholicism was resumed, as the success of Ferdinand 
promised to secure a signal victory for the Counter- Refor- 
mation in Germany. But this forward policy was dis- 
tasteful to Lerma, who found it necessary to retire in 
1618." 

Bacon's fears as to the Spanish monarchy we have some- 
what recounted, and some later, and in 1624, he says : 
" Is it nothing, that the crown of Spain hath enlarged the 
bounds thereof within these last six score years much more 
than the Ottomans? I speak not of matches or unions, but 
of arms, occupations, invasions. G-ranada, Naples, Milan, 
Portugal, the East and West Indies ; all these are actual 
additions to that crown and in possession. They had a 
great mind to French Britaine, the lower part of Picardy, 
and Piedmont ; but they have let fall their bit. They 
have, at this day, such a hovering possession of the Valto- 
line, as an hobby hath over a lark : and the Palatinate is 
in their talons : so that nothing is more manifest, than 

* We have had some thoughts as to whether the play of The Tem- 
pest may have centred in these actors in the foremost features of 
European politics, in a general sense, instead of in a mere special 
sense as applied to England, but have not seen reasons for changing 
our views. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 501 

that this nation of Spain runs a race (still) of empire, 
when all other States of Christendom stand in effect at a 
stay." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 479.) 

From the several articles relating to the York Buildings 
we give place to one, under date September 30th, 1721, 
as follows : 

" A. J., Sept. 30.— Sir, We have an old English Proverb 
very significant in itself, and verify'd often by Practice, 
Give the Loser- leave to speak.' In right of this Proverb 
or Custom, we have given our Passions vent a great while, 
and have raiPd most plentifully at the Law Managers of 
the South Sea Stock, and particularly at the Directors by 
Name. 

" Not content with that, we have, speaking nationally, 
brought them to Justice, and they stand as some call it, 
attainted in Parliament : tbeir Estates are confiscated, 
their Persons disabled, and the like. 

"■ But that which very much surprizes me (and indeed 
the Assurance of it is surprizing), is to hear, not the 
Losers, but the Winners rail. To hear Men open against 
the Scheme who were deepest ingulph'd in the Crime of 
it ; nay who, — if we may believe all the Evidence that has 
convinc'd a Parliament, — were Guilty, even of the very 
Machination, the original Plot, and the first thought of 
it. 'Tis a merry' Story to hear these Men open against 
the South Sea Company, against tbe Directors, against 
Mr. Knight, against the Brokers, and against every Body 
that had a share in carrying it on. 

*' Some are condemn'd and censur'd in Parliament for 
infamous Corruption, and for being concern' d therein 
with those who are censur'd with them in the same Bill ; 
and yet they are the Men who, with a particular Rage, are 
the first to fall foul upon the Directors, no Men more. 

*' This, Sir, has been so far from giving us in the Coun- 

^ Promus, 972. Always let losers have their words. 

' This word " merry" is an everywhere used word in these writ- 
ings. Promus, 471. Good to be merry and wise. Promus, 494. 
Better are meals -many than one to merry." Bacon says: " Your 
Grace will give me leave to be merry, however the world goeth with 
me." (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii,, p. 538.) And see pp. 72 and 342. 

^ This sentence, either designedly or otherwise, is a little peculiar. 
Some were sentenced for infamous corruption, and, and what ? Why, 
for being concerned with those who were censured, with them, in the 
same bill. 



502 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

try an Idea of those People's Honesty or Ignorance, that, 
on the contrary, it gives us a Sketch of inimitable Con- 
fidence and Assurance, I had almost call'd it Impudence ; 
likewise it convinces us of the Rectitude of Parliamentary 
Justice, and the Necessity there has been of consolidating 
some Men's Case with the Directors. Nay indeed, we 
think the Parliament had done well to have begun with 
these Men, and have made Examples of them first ; and 
' then perhaps we had not had such Complaints made of 
Skreens, and of Skreening the guilty People from the Pub- 
lick Resentment. 

'' Had these Men been laid hold of before Mr. Knight'- 
had fled, and had that Time been spent in the Enquiry 
after the Head of the Mischief, before we began to take 
hold of the lesser Thieves ; perhaps there would have been 
Cause given to have secur'd Mr. Knight, and have fast- 
ened him down, that he might not have had Time to move 
off ; and then, the green Book would have been perhaps 
discover'd also, and many a Truth have been discovered, 
that now we can only guess at. 

" But for want of this Discovery, we find them not only 
insisting upon their Innocence, and appealing, as I told 
you last Week, to the People ; but grown loud in their 
quarrelling at Public Justice ; and, in their Turn, casting 
Dirt upon their Fellow Criminals, and upon others also. 

" Is it not an unaccountable Stock that these Persons 
are arriv'd to ? That they should, at this Time of Day, 
fall upon the other Schemes and Projects, — such as the 
Assurances, and York-Buildings, — when they at the same 
Time assisted in that great Scheme, of which these were 
only the Seconds, and to which they were really as noth- 
ing? That they should charge these with a Crime in 
raising the Value of their Stocks, and making Offers to 
the Advantage of the Government, when they were in the 
great Cheat of all ? Where a Bargain was made with the 
Government, which 'tis apparent now they cannot per- 
form, and on the Chimera of which, such immense Sums 

'Is this word "knight" an interpolation? Or is it the dark 
horse for Sir Giles Mompesson, with whom Bacon had conference 
touching matters of the Treasury, and who with his papers made 
his escape and tied from Engh^nd at the commencement of the in- 
vestigation which was brought to a close by Bacon's overthrow ? 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 503 

were ad vane' d, as in the Disappointment must necessarily 
shock the whole Nation ? 

" That they should reproach particular Men for espous- 
ing those Things which they call'd Bubbles, when they 
themselves, in a very particular Manner, espoused the 
great Cheat of advanced Subscriptions to such a Degree, 
as to give in Lists of vast Sums to those Subscriptions, 
and that at a Rate which they knew could never be com- 
ply'd with. 

'' Give me leave to tell you, that 'tis our Opinion here, 
that these Men have been the Chief Agents of the Na- 
tion's Misfortunes ; the Supporters, the Encouragers, and 
the Grand Confederates in the whole South Sea Disaster. 
If some Body else has been as the Spencer^ of old Time, 
they have been the Gavestons, a name equally odious ; 
and together, they make us all Honour and Reverence the 
late Revolution in Parliament, as the general Voice of the 
whole People of England, (viz.) That they have been 
Guilty of most Infamous and Dangerous Corrup- 
tion. Yours, etc., N. B. 

"N.B. You may inform your Readers that a New 
Opera is design'd shortly to be presented to the Town, 
and to be acted by a Company of Comedians coming over 
from Brussels. This famous new Opera will be call'd 
Cacapismas or the History of the two Craggs's. 
" Their hungry Projectors have been our Directors, 

And with Bites and with Bubbles have Schem'd us ; 
Their Qamaton and Spencer have got our Pence, Sir, 
And Craggs,^ the old Barber, has trim'd us." 

(Lee, vol. ii., p. 434.) 
We here give another article touching the York Build- 
ings, dated Aug. 24th, 1723, as follows : 

^ As to " Spencer of old Time," see Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 246- 
51. Mr. Spedding says : ** There follows in the Lambeth papers a great 
deal of correspondence in which Francis Bacon took part, concern- 
ing the sale of Barly, an estate of Anthony's, to Alderman Spencer. 
The estate was entailed ; the Alderman was a sharp bargainer ; 
Sir Nicholas Bacon, the eldest of the half-brothers, being a ' re- 
mainder-man ' and required therefore to join in the bargain and sale, 
was difficult and suspicious ; Anthony was hard pressed for money ; 
the lawyers were subtle, and the law complicated." See refeience 
given. 

^ In Bacon's already mentioned private notes, made in 1608, we 
have : " Not. feodalls doon by Cragge perillous to Monarchies : qu. 
ulterius de universo isto nogotio." (Bacon's Letters, vol. iv., p. 94.) 



504 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

^' A. J., Aug. 24. — Sir, Bubbles were grown so Stale a 
Snare, after the Detecting the Frauds of the late Direction 
of the South Sea Company, that we thought it was impos- 
sible the People of England should have been any longer 
in Danger of being drawn in, or imposed upon. But 

" ' Of all the flagrant high Extremes of Vice, 
There's none so void of Sense as Avarice.' ^ 

" Had all the Honorable, and Right Honorable Persons 
who had raised immense Fortunes by the Shares they had 
in the cunning Part of the South Sea Affair acted in their 
Senses at last, and abandoned them in Time, they might 
not only have saved their Characters, but have been able 
to have made some Reparation to the Families, whom 
they had injured ; but they went on, and their own Ruin 
gave the Sufferers some Satisfaction, though not such as 
in Justice they had room to demand. 

" But the Sufferers, not warned sufficiently by their 
own Harms,^ permitted two Sets of Bubble Engineers to 
operate upon them still, and blinded by the general Ava- 
rice of the Times, submitted to be cajoled still with hopes 
of golden Mountains ;' and so the Crafty found the Way 
still to dip their Fingers in the Pockets of the Simple, till 
the Fate of Bubbles* in general came upon them. 

" ' So the unskilful Engineer 

Who fires an ill-charg'd Mine, 
Sinks in the Rubbish of his Works, 
And spoils his own Design.' 

- Promus, 80. (Bj far the largest portion of hellebore should be 
given to the covetous.) 

"^ Note this use of the word " harm" in the plays, in The Pilgrim's 
Progress, and throughout. In his Essay entitled " Of Envy" Bacon 
says : " For they are as men fallen out with the times ; and think 
other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings." 

' Raleigh in a statement before his voyage said ; " Secondly, 
when God shall permit us to arrive, if I bring them not to a moun- 
tain (near a navigable river) covered with gold and silver ore, let 
the commander have commission to cut off my head there. " (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. vi., p. 343.) And on p. 392, concerning this voyage 
and those that lost their fortunes in it. Bacon makes use of the ex- 
pression "golden bait." Please see quotation at p. 387, and see 
pp. 384-387. In an article upon this subject (see Lee, vol. ii., p. 218), 
v^e have " The Golden Bait M^as greedily Catched at," etc. 

* Note in The Pilgrim's Progress the description of "Madam 
Bubble !" p. 400. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 505 

^' When I say two Sorts of Bubbles remained, I do not 
tell you I mean the Harhurgli Lottery, and the Yorh 
Buildings Company ; but this I may say of them both, 
which I hope can give no Offence ; that if any Man of 
Common Understanding, ever took these two Projects to 
be anything else but Bubbles, unless it be something 
much worse ; I repeat it again, I may say, / loonder at 
them. 

" We find in the last of these, a Person of Noble Eank, 
and unspotted Character, has quitted the Service, or the 
Command, call it as you please ; 'tis not for us to give 
Reasons for it. The World guesses his Lordship's Reasons 
to be very good, and indeed so do I, and I believe the 
World guesses at those Reasons too. 

*' Had the Right Honorable Person concerned in the 
First of them thought to have quitted, in the same timely 
manner, I believe he had not given room for Knaves to 
lay the Scandal of their Designs at his Door ; nor for the 
Public Justice to take cognizance of him to his Disadvan- 
tage. 

" Men of Design love dearly to have high Patrons ; 
not only to Disguise their Frauds, in order to push them 
with more Success upon the World, but to bear the weight 
of the popular Clamour, when that Fraud is Detected. 

" Do Men think there were no Knaves in the South Sea 
Administration but the Directors, and those few that bore 
the Weight with them ? Was the Harhurgli Lottery the 
single Act and Project of only the Person that suffered 
the Blast of it ? No, no ! all Projects have a Head, but 
they have also Members. ' 

" Now here is a Bubble made Notorious, and the Right 
Honorable Person, on whose Reputation perhaps some 
Men thought they could build a BaheV' of their own Imag- 
ination, has quitted ; and they are now left to themselves 
deceived, and are without a Head. Let us see what Meas- 
ures they will take to lick into shape again the Creatures 
they have to nurse. 

" AVill they tell us that a Stock, whose intrinsick was 
affirmed to be worth between 30 and ^O^^er ce/i^. cannot 

' This expression may be found in several places in Bacon's at- 
tributed writings. As to a plot against Bacon see p. 343. 

^ Bacon applied the word " babel " to Salisbury's great scheme 
for revenue, as we have seen in earlier pages. See p. 228. 



506 THREAT) OF THE LABYRINTH. 

stand at seven and a half ? And that Men could be so 
blind, as to decline to pay a call upon a Stock intrinsically 
worth 25 7;er cent, above the Market Price ? Can this be, 
and no Fraud, either in the present Practice, or the past? 
If the Stock is now worth but seven and a half. How can 
it be true that it was worth 33 or 40 ? If it be worth 
more than seven and a half. Why is it offered so low, and 
why so few Buyers? If it was affirmed to be worth 33, it 
was True, or, it was not ; if not, then it was a Bubble in 
those that affirmed it to be worth, really worth it. What's 
become of the intrinsick? Who has lessened it? Delude 
the World no more you Men of Bites and Projects, two 
Things are before you. 

" Either produce the Money, the Missing of which has 
made it less ; Or, produce the Man that affirmed it to be 
more. Your Humble Servant, A Sufferer." (Lee, vol. 
iii., p. 175.) 

But now let us look deeper for our thread. Mining, 
together with the recovery of treasure from the sea, was 
laid as a kind of basis for Solomon's House in the New 
Atlantis. Aid in the enterprise was sought through Par- 
liament. By means of it Bacon was to make the world 
his heir. This was to be accomplished by means of true 
penitents, reformed criminals, "whose wretched carcasses 
the imperial laws have, or shall dedicate, as untimely 
feasts, to the worms of the earth, in whose womb those 
deserted mineral riches must ever lie buried as lost abort- 
ments, unless those be made the active midwives to deliver 
them." ^ The voyage of the New Atlantis was headed for 
the South Sea. Bacon had some undisclosed scheme for 
revenue. Dr. Eawley's words are that " some papers 
touching matters of estate, tread too near to the heels of 
truth, and to the times of the persons concerned." In 
the light of these facts we quote in full the appendix to 
Swift's voyage to Laputa, entitled a " Ballad on the South 
Sea Scheme." ^ 



' Already have we seen Bacon's manifested interest concerning 
the Commonwealth's commission for the poor and vagabonds, p. 236, 

^ Ch. 1 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis, which opens the subject 
of the transmission of literary products to posterity, begins in these 
words : "It is permitted to every man (excellent King) to make 
merry with himself and his own matters." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 507 



'* Ye wise pliilosopliers, explain 

What magic makes our money rise, 

Wiieu dropp'd into the Southern main ; 

Or do these jugglers cheat our eyes ? 

" Put in your money, fairly told, 

Presto ! begone ! — 'tis here again : 
Ladies and gentlemen, behold, — 
Here's every piece as big as ten ! 

'* Thus, in a basin drop a shilling, 
Then fill the vessel to the brim. 
Yon shall observe, as you are filling, 
The ponderous metal seems to swim.* 

* It rises both in bulk and height. 
Behold it swelling like a sop f 
The liquid medicine cheats your sight, — 
Behold^ it mounted"* to the top. 



' Bacon, in Sub. 761 of his Natural History, says : " For like as a 
shilling in the bottom of the water will show greater ; so will a 
candle in a lanthorn, in the bottom of the water." In the next sub. 
he says : " For example, we see that, take an empty basin, put an 
angel of gold, or what you will, into it ; then go so far from the 
basin, till you cannot see the angel, because it is not in a right line ; 
then fill the basin with water ; and you shall see it out of its place, 
because of the refiection." See these sections in this connection. 

'^ Bacon says : " Spirit of wine mingled with common water, 
though it be much lighter than oil, yet so as if the first fall be broken 
by means of a sop or otherwise, it stayeth above ; and if it be once 
mingled, it severeth not again, as oil doth." (Phil. Works, vol. 
iii., p. 822.) And on p. 458 he says : " For small favours, they do 
but lull men asleep, both as to caution and as to industry, and as 
Demosthenes calleth them, AUmenta socordicB [sops to feed sloth]." 

3 This use of the word " behold " may be found throughout these 
writings. In Bacon's expostulatory letter to Coke we have : " First, 
therefore, behold your errors." Promus, 338. (Behold how all 
things rejoice at the approach of the age.) In Measure for Measure, 
Act i., sc. 2, p. 24, we have : 

** Lucio. Behold, behold where madam Mitigation comes !" 

And in The Pilgrim's Progress, concerning the sheep, p. 287, we have : 
" Behold how quietly she takes her death, and, without objecting, 
she suffereth her skin to be pulled over her ears." 

* As to the word " mount," we find Bacon, in his Natural History, 
Sub. 532-36, using the expressions " vapour mounting to the head ;" 
" firs and pines mount of themselves ;" "a slow putting forth, and 
less vigour of mounting ;" " they are kept warm ; and that even in 
plants helpeth mounting." And see his use of the word at p. 154. 
In the De Augmentis, Book 5, ch. 2, Bahn ed., p. 193, he says : 



508 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

" In stock three hundred thousand pounds, 
I have in view a lord's estate ; 
My manors all contiguous round, 
A coach and six, and served in plate 1 

" Thus the deluded bankrupt faves, 
Puts all upon a desperate bet, 
Then plunges in the southern waves, 
Dipped over head and ears — in debt. 

*' So, by a calenture misled, 

The mariner v^ith rapture sees 
On the smooth ocean's azure bed, 
Enamelled fields and verdant trees, 

" With eager haste he longs to rove 
In that fantastic scene, and thinks 
It must be some enchanted grove, 
And in he leaps, and down he sinks. 

" Five hundred chariots, just bespoke, 

Are sunk in these devouring waves, — 
The horses drown'd, the harness broke. 
And here the owners find their graves. 

" Like Pharaoh, by directors led ; 

They with their spoils went safe before ! 
His chariots tumbling out the dead. 
Lay shatter'd on the Red Sea shore. 

" Raised up on Hope's aspiring plumes, 
The young adventurer o'er the deep, 
An eagle's liight and state assumes. 
And scorns the middle-way to keep.' 

** On paper wings he takes his flight, 

With tcax the father bound them fast ; 
The wax is melted by the height, 
And down the towering boy is cast. 



" So heat in diffusing itself rather mounts upwards, but cold in 
diffusing itself rather moves downwards." In Addison, vol. i., p. 
482, we have: "At the same time are seen little flakes of scurf 
rising up, that are probably the parts which compose the islands, 
for they often mount of themselves, though the water is not 
troubled." 

' Here, again, we have Bacon's allusion to " Scylla and Icarus, 
or The Middle Way." Read in this connection his interpretation of 
this fable. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 509 



" A moralist might here explain 

The rashness of the Cretan youth, — 
Describe his fall into the main, 
And from a fable form a truth. 

" His wings are his paternal rent. 
He melts the icax at every flame ; 
His credit sunk, his money spent, 
In Southern Seas he leaves Ids name, 

" Inform us, you that best can tell, 

Why in yon dangerous gulf profound. 
Where hundreds and where thousands fell, 
Fools chiefly float, the wise are drown'd 

" So have I seen, from Severn's brink, 
A flock of geese jump down together, 
Swim where the birds of Jove would sink, 
And swimming, never wet a feather.'^ 

" But I affirm 'tis false, in fact. 

Directors better know their tools ; 
We see the nation's credit cracked, 
Each knave has made a thousand fools. ^ 



^ As to this gulf see the mentioned fable as given in Mr. Mon- 
tagu's Life of Bacon, where w^e have mentioned " the rocks of dis- 
tinction and the gulfs of universality, which two are famous for the 
wrecks both of wits and arts." I find that Mr. Spedding, if not 
here, in many places seeks to concentrate Bacon's words. See also 
in this connection Addison, vol. iv., pp. 321-25. 

2 " A flock of geese" signifies a senate, as seen in our quotation 
from Swift, p. 455. 

3 Promus, 612. (At length the string cracks by being overstrained.) 
In the A. D. B. Mask, p. 134, we have : 

" If thou do aught, laborious. 
Yet if it honest be, 
Thy name and fame most Glorious 
Shall rest from pains most free : 
But if with pleasure and delight 
Thou work a wicked fact. 
Thy pleasure soon will take his flight. 
Shame stays and Credit's crackt." 

Note the use of this word " crack," and particularly in the plays. 
In Hamlet, Act. v., sc. 2, p. 376, we have : 

" Hor. Now cracks a noble heart !— Good night, sweet prince ; 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest ! — 
Why does the drum come hither." 

In The Tempest, Act iii., sc. 1, p. 64, we have : 



510 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

" One fool may from another win, 

And then get off with money stored, 
But if a sharper once comes in, 

He throws at all, and sweeps the board. 

" As iishes on each other prey, 

The great ones swallow up the small ; 
So fares it in the Southern Sea, 
The whale directors eat up all.' 

*' When stock is high, they come between, 
Making by secondhand their offers, 
Then cunningly retire unseen, 
AVith each a million in his coffers. 

" So when upon a moonshine night, 
An ass was drinking at a stream, 
A cloud arose and stopped the light, 
By intercepting every beam.* 

" The day of judgment will be soon. 
Cries out a sage among the crowd. 
An ass has swallowed up the moon — 
The moon lay safe behind a cloud. 

" Each poor subscriber to the sea. 

Sinks down at once, and there he lies ; 
Directors fall as well as they, 
Their fall is but a trick to rise. 



" Fer. No, precious creature : 

I'd rather crack my sinews, break my back. 
Than you should such dishonour undergo. 
While I sit lazy by." 
And in Act v., sc. 1, p. 91, we have : 

" Pro. Now does my project gather to a head : 
My charms crack not ; my spirits obey ; and time 
Goes upright with his carriage.'' 
' In the play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act ii., sc. 1, p. 308, we 
have : 

" 1 Fish. Why as men do a-land : the great ones eat up the little 
ones. I can compare our rich misers to nothing so jQtly as to a 
whale ; 'a plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and 
at last devours them all at a mouthful. Such whales have I heard 
on the land, who never leave gaping, till they've swallow 'd the 
whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all." And see All's Well 
that Ends Well, Act iv., sc. 3, p. 359. 

^ Promus, 648. For the moonshine in the water. In Love's 
Labour's Lost, Act v., sc. 2, p. 445, we have : 

" Ros. O vain petitioner ! beg a greater matter ; 
Thou now request 'st 'but moonshine in the water." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 511 

" So fishes rising from tlie main, _ 

Can soar with moistened wmgs on high ; 
The moisture dried, they sink agam, 
And dip their fins again to fly. 

•• Undone at play, the female troops 
Come here their losses to retrieve ; 
Ride o'er the waves in spacious hoops, 
Like Lapland witches in a sieve. ^ 

" Thus Venus to the sea descends 

As poets feign ; but where's the moral i 
It shows the queen of love intends 
To search the sea for pearl and coral. 

" The sea is richer than the land, 

I heard it from my grannam's mouth ; 
Which now I clearly understand, 
For by the sea she meant the south. 

" Thus by directors, we are told, 

' Pray, gentlemen, believe your eyes ; 
Our ocean's covered o'er with golcl, 
Look round and see how thick it lies : 

•' ' We gentlemen, are your assisters, ^ 

We'll come and hold you by the chin : 
Alas ! all is not gold that glisters, _ 
Ten Thousands sink by leaping in. 

" Oh ' would those patriots be so kind 
Here is the deep to loash their hands. 
Then like Pactolus, we should find, 
The sea indeed had golden sands. 

" A shilling in the bath you fling, 
The silver takes a nobler hue, 
By magic virtue in the spring, ^ 
And seems a guinea to your view. 

" But as a guinea will not pass 
At market for a farthing more, 
Shown through a multiplying- glass. 
Than what it always did before 

1 Promus 723. To divine with a sieve. Promus, 521. (Almost 

^f Prom'u? «r mtl^ gold that glisters. Promus, 478. He 
must needs' swim that is held up by the chin. 



512 THREAD OF THE LABYRIi^TH. 

" So cast it in the Soutliern seas, 

Or view it through a jobber's bill ; — 
Put ou what spectacles you please, 
Your guinea's but a guinea still. 

" One night a fool into a brook, 

Thus from a hillock looking clown, 
The golden stars for guineas took, 
And silver Cynthia for a crown. 

" The point he could no longer doubt : 
He ran, he leaped into the flood ; 
There sprawl'd a while, and scarce got out, 
All cover'd o'er with slime and mud. 



Upon the water cast thy bread. 
And after many days thou 'It find it ; ' 

But gold upon this ocean spread. 

Shall sink, and leave no mark behind it. 



" There is a gulf where thousands fell. 
Here all the bold adventurers came, 
A narrow sound, though deep as hell 
Change Alley is the dreadful name. 

" Nine times a day it ebbs and flows, 
Yet he that on the surface lies, 
Without a pilot seldom knows 
The time it falls or when 'twill rise. 



** Subscribers here by thousands float, 
And jostle one another down ; 
Each paddling in his leaky boat, 

And there they fish for gold and drown. 

" Now buried in the depths below, 
Now mounted up to heaven again. 
They reel and stagger to and fro, 
At their wits' end, like drunken men. 

" Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs, 
A savage race, by shipwrecks fed. 
Lie waiting for the founder'd skiffs. 
And strip the bodies of the dead. 

" But these, you say, are fictions lies, 
From some malicious Tory's brain ; 
For where directors get a prize, 
The Swiss and Dutch whole millions drain. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 513 

** Thus, when by rooks a lord is plied, 
Some cully often wins a bet. 
By venturing on the cheating side. 
Though not into the secret let. 

** "While some build castles in the air, 
Directors build them in the seas ; 
Subscribers plainly see them there, — 
For fools will see as wise men please. 

*' Thus oft by mariners are shown — 
Unless the men of Kent are liars — 
Earl Godwin's castles overthrown. 
And palace roofs and steeple spires. 

*' Mark where the sly directors creep. 
Nor to the shore approach too nigh \ 
The monsters nestle in the deep, 
To seize you in your passing by. 

*' Then like the dogs of Nile, be wise. 
Who taught by instinct how to shun 
The crocodile, that lurking lies, 

Run as they drink, and drinking run. 

" AntfEus could, by magic charms. 
Recover strength where'er he fell ; 
Alcides held him in his arms. 
And sent him up in air to hell. 

*' Directors thrown into the sea. 

Recover strength and vigor there ; 
But may be tamed another way, 
Suspended for a while in air ! 

** Directors! for 'tis you I warn, 

By long experience we have found 
What planet ruled when you were born ;* 
We see you never can be drown'd. 

** Beware, nor over-bulky grow. 

Nor come within your cully's reach ; 
For if the sea should sink so low, 
To leave you dry upon the beach, 



1 In a Defoe article dated April 30th, 1720 (Lee, vol. ii., p. 220), 
we have : " Sure some ill Planet ruled when I was born ! I have 
all my life been building Castles in the Air, yet could never get a 
lodging in any one of them. ' ' 

17 



614 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

" You'll owe your ruin to your bulk ; 
Your foes already waiting stand, 
To tear you like a founder'd hulk, 
While you lie helpless on the strand. 

" Thus, when a whale has lost the tide, 
The coasters crowd to seize the spoil ; 
The monster into parts divide, 

And strip the bones, and melt the oil.* 

" O ! may some western tempest sweep 
These locusts whom our fruits have fed 
That plague, directors, to the deep. 

Driven from the South Sea to the Red.' 

*' May He, whom Nature's laws obey, 

Who lifts the poor and sinJcs the proud. 
Quiet the raging of the sea 
And still the madness of the crowd ! 

" But never shall our isle have rest 

Till those devouring sioine run down. 
The devils leaving the possessed, — 
And hpadlong in the waters drown. 

* Concerning the revenue, mining, and the whale, Bacon, in 1617, 
says : " When the famous case of the Copper Mines was argued in 
this court, and judged for the King, it was not upon the fine reasons 
of wit ; as that the King's prerogative drew to it the chief in qnaque 
specie ; the lion is the chief of beasts, the eagle the chief of birds, 
the whale the chief of fishes, and so copper the chief of minerals ; 
for these are but dalliances of law and ornaments ; but it was the 
grave records and precedents that grounded the judgment of that 
cause ; and therefore I would have you both guide and arm yourself 
with them against these vapours and fumes of law, which are ex- 
tracted out of men's inventions and conceits." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vi., p. 203.) See Defoe article, p. 480. As to these copper mines, 
see a foot-note to p. 214 of Gulliver's Travels. In Henry IV., part 
2, Act iv., sc. 4, p. 408, we have : 

" His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd : 
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently. 
When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth ; 
But, being moody, give him line and scope. 
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground, 
Confound themselves with working." 

^ In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 112, we have : " Thus it happened 
to Israel ; for their sins they were sent back again by the way of 
the Red Sea ; and I am made to tread those steps with sorrow which 
I might have trod with delight, had it not been for this sinful 
sleep. ' 



THREAD OF THE LABYRIXTH. 515 

" The Nation then, too late, will find, 
Computing all their cost and trouble. 
Directors' promises but wind, 
South Sea at best a mighty bubble."^ 

We here imagine the intelligent reader to shift his 
globes of vision from our page and say : 'Tis true, we here 
find illusions that may very properly be taken to concern 
Bacon's troubles from 1617 to and after his fall, and the 
circumstances to have caused good men, as well as 
the rabble, to have combined against him. But it may 
likewise be said, Were not these the lines of Dean Swift 
in 1720, and which appear in the mentioned edition of 
Gulliver's Travels beginning at p. 255, and from which 
our quotation is taken ? 

Our unhesitating answer is, that whoever else may have 
been the author of "Gulliver's Travels," ''A Tale of 
a Tub," ''The Battle of the Books," " The Mechanical 
Operation of the Spirit," "The Abolishing of Chris- 
tianity," " The Art of Political Lying," and some others, 
Dean Swift was not, unless it be likewise said that he was 
author not only of the newly discovered Defoe papers, 
but generally of the body of the Defoe literature ; and 
which conclusion, with us, the careful reader mnst him- 
self reach if he but peruse them in relation ; and this, not 
by reason of identity of language characteristics merely, 
but by reason of general invention and in touching upon the 
same subjects of thought. " Gulliver's Travels" excepted, 
Swift's works consist of short pieces, and found in the 
mentioned Camelot Classics edition, of which we have 
made use in this investigation. 

The *' Tale of a Tub," together with its introductory 
matter, should be read, or much light will be withheld 

^ Touching the word " bubble," we here give place to the first of 
four verses by Bacon in the introduction to his translation into verse 
of certain Psalms, and which is as follows : 

" The world's a bubble, and the life of man 
less than a span : 
In his conception wretched, from the womb 

so to the tomb : 
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years 

with cares and fears. 
Who then to frail mortality shall trust, 
But limns the water, or but w^rites in dust." 
(Bacon's Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 271.) And as to " Madam 
Bubble," please see The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 400. 



516 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

from the reader^ It is indeed a Head -light to our Head- 
light. It is dedicated to posterity in these Avords, " To His 
Royal Highness Prince Posterity," and upon which Prince 
Sir Francis Bacon, as we have seen, ever had his eye. 

The publisher's introductory statement to the article 
entitled " A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Opera- 
tion of the Spirit" is in these words : " The following 
Discourse came into my hands perfect and entire ; but 
there being several things in it which the present age 
would not very well bear, I kept it by me some years, re- 
solving it should never see the light. At length, by the 
advice and assistance of a judicious friend, I retrenched 
those parts that might give most offence, and have now 
ventured to publish the remainder. Concerning the author 
I am wholly ignorant ; neither can I conjecture whether 
it be the same with that of the two foregoing pieces [these 
are ' A Tale of a Tub ' and ' The Battle of the Books '], 
the original having been sent me at a different time, and 
in a different hand. The learned reader will better de- 
termine to whose judgment I entirely submit it." 

Again do we call attention to the mana3uvring by which 
*' Gulliver's Travels" — said to be designed to form part of a 
satire on the " Abuse of Human Learning," projected by 
Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot — came first to the hands of 
the publisher.^ 

As to the article on Political Lying, Swift wrote to 
Stella : " Arbuthnot has sent me from Windsor, a pretty 
discourse upon lying ; and I have ordered the printer to 
come for it." ^ 

^ From a note at p. 56 of Gulliver we quote the following : " Swift 
and Defoe are unrivalled in the art of introducing trifling and mi- 
nute circumstances which give an air of reality to Ihcir fictitious 
narrations. In Gulliver's early history, as in that of Crusoe, persons 
are casually mentioned of whom we hear nothing more. Gulliver's 
uncle, like Crusoe's brother, only comes on the stage to disappear 
again forever. This is quite contrary to the usual course of romance 
writers, who rarely introduce a personage or any incident that does 
not in some way aid the development of the plot." And we may 
add that the language features already considered apply equally to 
the works of Swift. 

^ Bacon represents Hermes Stella as making annotations upon his 
fragment entitled Valerius Termimis, though no such annotations 
appear. And Mr. Spedding says : " The manuscript from which 
Robert Stephens printed these fragments was found among some 
loose papers placed in his hands by the Earl of Oxford, and is now 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 517 

It thus appears to have come from some hand other 
than Swift's. But the preserved papers between these par- 
ties were doubtless part of the great scheme. 

From an introductory note to the mentioned edition of 
Swift's Works we quote as follows : 

" Thus the services of a writer so ready and incisive as 
Swift were of the highest value to the ministry. The 
Examiner, a weekly series of political essays, was com- 
menced in their interest shortly after their accession to 
power. Swift soon took it in hand, and continued to 
write it for some eight months. On the 27th of Nov. 
1711 his pamphlet on The Conduct of the Aliens appeared. 
A second edition was called for in a few days, and was 
sold in a few hours. By the end of January 11,000 copies 
had been sold. Much other work of effective sort he did 
for Harley'fi ministry." It is here also said : 

" The Examiner was a weekly sheet established in 
support of the Tory Government of the day. The first 
number appeared on the 3rd of August 1710. Among 
tlie earliest writers were Atterburry, St. John (afterward 
Viscount Bolingbroke), and Prior. Swift's first contribu- 
tion was No. 14, dated the 2nd of November. His second 
is printed here.^ He continued to write the paper regu- 
larly for about eight months, his last essay being No. 45, 
dated the 7th of June 1711, and his last contribution, a brief 
address in No. 46 ; after which, as he states, he ' let it 
fall into other hands, who held it up in some manner until 
Her Majesty's death.' " 

Swift is also said to have contributed some articles to 
the Tatler, started by Steel April 12th, 1709, and con- 
tinued to January 2d, 1711. 

It is here important to inquire as to whether, as orig- 
inally produced, all of the articles in the great scheme, as 
in those by Swift, Addison, and some others, were num- 
bered. Why ? Because the work was not only devised, 
but produced, through a formula. On what authority ? 
Bacon's own words. Where found? At p. 181, where 
he says: "I foresee that this formula of interpretation, 

in tlie British Museum ; Harl. MSS. 6463." (Bacon's Phil. Works, 
vol. Hi., p. 206.) 

1 Note that these articles by Swift were all numbered. This is like- 
wise true of the Addison articles. Let it be investigated as to 
whether this was true of them all when first issued. 



518 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

and the inventions made by it, will be more vigorous and 
secure when contained within legitimate and chosen de- 
vices." And see Sonnet, p. 102, and quotation at p. 107. 
In connection with this thought we introduce a Defoe ar- 
ticle under date July 31st, 1725, as follows : 

^^ A. J., July 31. — Sir, I suppose, among the rest of 
your Friends, you have not been ignorant of the Clamour 
which has been made upon a certain Author, for publish- 
ing his Translation, or Version, of our old Friend Homer, 
under his own Name, when it seems he has not been, nay, 
some have had the hardiness to say, could not have been, 
the real Operator. 

*' I must confess, I cannot come into all the Resent- 
ments of the learned AVorld upon that Subject ; and I am 
not without my Reasons for my Opinion, as I suppose 
they have shewn their reasons for theirs. 

" Writing, you know, Mr. Applehee, is become a very 
considerable Branch of the English Commerce ; Com- 
posing, Inventing, Translating, Versifying, etc., are the 
several Manufactures which su])ply the Commerce. The 
Booksellers are the Master Manufacturers or Employers. 
The several Writers, Authors, Copyers, Sub-Writers, and 
all other 0|)erators with Pen and Ink, are the Workmen 
employed by tlie said Master Manufacturers, in the form- 
ing, dressing, and finishing the said Manufactures ; as the 
Combers, Spinners, Weavers, Fullers, Dressers, etc., are, 
in our Clothing Manufactures, by the Master Clothiers, 
etc. 

" If a Clothier employs a Master AVorkman to weave 
him so many Pieces of Cloth, and agrees with him for so 
much Money, the AVeaver brings them home finished, and 
puts his own Mark on them ; and this AVeaver, being 
known to be a good AVorkman, the Master Clothier recom- 
mends the Cloths to his Customers, as the AVork and 
AA^eaving of such a known and eminent AVeaver. At the 
same Time, the Clothier knows very well that the said 
A¥eaver could not be able to weave them all himself ; per- 
haps also he knows that some of them are of a much meaner 
Workmanship than that AVeaver used to AVork, yet the 
AVeaver and the Clothier conniving together, they all carry 
the same Mark. Nay, sometimes the AVeaver brings a 
better Workman than himself into the Loom ; but having 
an Opportunity to get his AVork cheaper, he takes him in. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 519 

And thus, a Medley of goods are put off together, all under 
the Mark, and in the Name of the Master Weaver. 

'' Now upon the whole, pray, Mr. Applebee, who is the 
greatest Cheat in this' Affair, the Clothier or the Manu- 
fjicturer, the Master Employer, or the Weaver? Not but 
that they may be both Rogues, Mr. Applebee, but who is 
most concerned in the Fraud, seeing it is the Master 
Clothier who puts the Goods off in the Weaver's Name, 
tho' he knows there are 'Prentices, and Scoundrels, 
for the sake of a low Price, employed in the making them. 

" As to Writing, Mr. Applebee, Do we expect that every 
Man that publishes a Book, and sets his Name to it, should 
Bona fide, be the Author of it all himself ? Do we not 
know how several Booksellers of Note at this Time, keep 
Authors of different Fame employed, some at one Price, 
some at another, to form the same Pieces of Work ? And 
have not several Authors, who are particular for being 
voluminous, their several Journeymen that work for them, 
some in one Jail, some in another, some in one fluxing 
House, some in another? Nay, has not the Right Rever- 
end Author himself, who made this very complaint, his 
deputy Journalist^ and his sujiply of Operators, as Occa- 
sion requires, tho' the Labourers receive their Esteem 
from his own illustrious Character, and are all called his 
Own? 

" Did not the late celebrated Tathrs pass, even to the 
end of the Work, for the Labours of the worthy Editor Sir 
Dich Steele? And did it not come out at last, ivlienlie 
could conceal it no longer, that he had abundance of Aid 
deplumes under him? And might we not give the same 
Account of several laborious Tracts, which the AVorld to 
this Day honours the Names of Authors for, who had the 
least share in the Labour ? 

" But to carry this Complaint higher, a Merry Fellow 
of my Acquaintance assures me, that our Cousin Homer 
himself was guilty of the same Plagiarism, Cousin Homer 
you must note was an old blind Ballad Singer at Athens, 
and went about the Country there, and at other Places in 
Greece, singing his Ballads from Door to Door ; only with 
this Difference, that the Ballads he sung were generally of 
his own nii^king. Hence I suppose it vvas, that one of the 
same Profession here in London, — who, tho' blind too, 
made his own Ballads, — was so universally called Old 



520 THREAD OF THE LABYRIN'TH. 

Homer. But says my Friend, this Homer, in process of 
Time, when he had gotten some Fame, — and perhaps more 
Money than Poets ought to be trusted with, — grew Lazy 
and Knavish, and got one Andronicus a Spartan, and one 

Dr. S 1, a Philosopher of A tJiens, both pretty good Poets, 

but less eminent than himself, to make his Songs for 
him ; which, they being poor and starving, did for him 
for a small Matter. And so, the Poet never did much 
himself, only published and sold his Ballads still, in his 
own Name, as if they had been his own ; and by that, got 
great Subscriptions, and a high Price for them. 

" Now, Mr. Applehee, if my Friend be in the right, was 
not Cousin Homer a Knave, for imposing thus upon the 
Grecian World ? In a Word, it seems to me that Old 
Homer, was a mere Mr. P(«p^), and Mr. P(°p^), in that 
Particular, a mere Hoiner ; so that there's ne'er a Barrel 
the better Herring, except the Master Mannfacturer ; 

who, like a Bawd to a , knew the Fraud, and imposed 

it upon his Customers, and so has been worse than both 
of them. Your Servant, Anti-Pope." ^ (Lee, vol. iii., 
p. 409.) 

The journals in which Defoe was interested have already 
passed under review. And so may we see the instruments 
with which, and by means of which, Harley was enabled 
to compass the gigantic game which he played with the 
books — namely, " The Battle of the Books." 

Have we here a kuavish attempt to carry out his own, 
or a muddled one, to carry out a Baconian scheme ? or 
did it partake of both elements ? ^ 

The article by the mentioned title — viz., "The Battle of 



' To all of these articles Mr. Lee has himself supplied titles, as he 
tells us. This one is entitled " On Pope's Translation of Homer." 
Bacon says : " Surely of those poets which are now extant, even 
Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture 
by the later schools of the Grecians), yet I should without any dith- 
culty pronounce that his fables had no such inwardness in his own 
meaning ; but what they might have upon a more original tradition, 
is not easy to affirm ; for he was not the inventor of many of them." 
(Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 345.) Bacon's statement at p. 428, note 1, 
was made in connection with the works of Homer. And see p. 460. 

^ These questions, as w^ell as that embraced in the thought that 
Harley may have formed but one in a knot of men interested in the 
great design, are matters to be considered by themselves. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 521 

the Books" — is indeed a most subtle piece of work, and Las 
for its ruling idea Bacon's comparison of his own methods 
with the ancients ;^ and secondly, a side issue by Avhich 
he is represented as cast from his Empire — his Dukedom 
of The Tempest. Criticism had begun upon the Novum 
Organum upon the eve of his fall, and as well at Rome as 
elsewhere.^ 

In this article, as in the play of The Tempest, two 
courses appear : 1. As between the ancients and moderns ; 
and 2. A side issue between the spider, who is said to spin 
all out of himself, and the bee, whom Bacon, while not 
strictly of either party, though a modern, personates ; 
and who in his discourse with the spider makes allusion to 
the spider's foreign assistance in casting him. The Battle 
is' represented as having begun in St. James' Library.^ 
Touching this side issue, we from the mentioned article 
quote as follows : 

'^Things were at this crisis -when a material accident 

' On p. 2 of the article it is said : " But the issues or events of 
this war are not so easy to conjecture at ; for the present quarrel is 
so inflamed by the warm heads of either faction, and the preten- 
sions somewhere or other so exorbitant, as not to admit the least 
overtures of accommodation. This quarrel first began, as I have 
heard it affirmed by an old dweller in the neighborhood, about a 
small spot of ground, lying and being upon one of the two tops of 
the hill Parnassus ; the highest and largest of which had, it seems, 
been time out of mind in quiet possession of certain tenants, called 
the Ancients; and the other was held by the Moderns." As to 
Parnassus, please see Defoe's " Consolidator," pp. 222-27 ; Addi- 
son, vol. iv., pp. 221-24, and vol. v., pp. 214-27. Bacon says: 
" For as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters 
of the Spaw, that give a stomach ; but rather they quench appetite 
and desire." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 345.) 

^ King James in a kind of profane jest said of the Novum Or- 
ganum, that " it is like the peace of God — it passeth all understand- 
ing." And Coke in a copy sent to him wrote : 

" It deserveth not to be read in schools, 
Bui to be freighted in a ship of Fools." 

By a Catholic bishop Bacon had been drawn into defining his posi- 
tion. See pp. 64 and 112. 

^ In his last will Bacon says : " But as to the durable part of my 
memory, which consisteth in my works and writings, 1 desire my 
executors, and especially Sir John Constable and my very good 
friend Mr. Bosvile, to take care that of all my writings, both in 
English and Latin, there may be books fair bound, and placed in the 
King's library, and in the library of the university of Cambridge," 
etc' (Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., p. 539.) 



522 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

fell out. For upon the highest corner of a la.rge window 
tliere dwelt a certain spider, swollen np to the first mag- 
nitude by the destruction of infinite numbers of flies, 
whose spoils lay scattered before the gates of his palace, 
like human bones before the cave of some giant. The 
avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes and 
palisadoes, all after the modern way of fortification. After 
you had passed several courts you came to the centre, 
wherein you might behold the constable himself in his 
own lodgings, wliich had windows fronting to each avenue, 
and ports to sally out upon all occasions of prey or de- 
fence. In this mansion he had for some time dwelt in 
peace and plenty, without danger to his person by the 
swallows^ from above, or to his palace by brooms^ from 
below ; when it was the pleasure of fortune to conduct 
thither a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken pane 
in the glass had discovered itself, and in he went ; where, 
expatiating a while, hjB at last happened to alight upon 
one of the outward walls of the spider's citadel ; which, 
yielding to the unequal weight, sunk down to the very 
foundation. Thrice he endeavoured to force his passage, 
and thrice the centre shook The spider within, feeling 
the terrible convulsion, supposed at first that nature was 
approaching to her final dissolution ; or else, that Beelze- 
bub, with all his legions, was come to revenge the death 
of many thousands of his subjects whom his enemy had 
slain and devoured. However, he at length valiantly re- 
solved to issue forth and meet his fate. Meanwhile the 
bee had acquitted himself of his toils, and, posted securely 
at some distance, was employed in cleaning his wings, and 
disengaaing them from the ragged remnants of the cob- 
web. By this time the spider was adventured out, when, 
beholding the chasms, the ruins, and dilapidations of his 
fortress, he was very near at his wits' end ; he stormed 
and swore like a madman, and swelled till he was ready to 
burst. At length, casting his eye upon the bee, and 
wisely gathering causes from events (for they knew each 
other by sight) : A plague split you, said he, for a giddy 

1 Promns, 586. (Allow no swallows under thy roof. Interpreted 
by Hieronymus of garrulous and gossiping persons.) 

■^ Pronius, 888. (Broken up brooms. Said of the disorderly and 
worthless, who can be put to no use.) In Gulliver's Travels, at p. 
231, a broom is said to signify " a revolution." See p. 455. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 523 

son of a whore ; is it yon, with a Tengeance, that have 
made this litter here ? could yon not look before yon, and 
be d — d ? do yon think I have nothing to do (in the devil's 
name) but to mend and repair after your arse? — Good 
words/ friend, said the bee (having now pruned himself, 
and being disposed to droll) : I'll give you my hand and 
word to come near your kenuel no more ; I was never in 
such a confounded pickle since I was born. — Sirrah, re- 
plied the spider, if it were not for breaking an old custom 
in our family, never to stir abroad against an enemy, I 
should come and teach you better manners. — I pray have 
patience, said the bee, or you'll spend your substance, and, 
for aught I see, yon may stand in need of it all, towaid. 
the repair of your house. — Eogue, rogue, replied the 
spider, yet methinks you should have more respect to a 
person whom all the world allows to be so much your bet- 
ters. — By my troth, ^ said the bee, the comparison will 
amount to a very good jest ; and you will do me a favour 
to let me know the reasons that all the world is pleased to 
use in so hopeful a dispute. At this the spider, having 
swelled himself into the size and posture of a disputant, 
began his argument in the true spirit of controversy, with 
resolution to be heartily scurrilous and angry to urge on 
his own reasons, withont the least regard to the answer or 
objections of his opposite ; and fully predetermined in 
his mind against all conviction. 

*' Not to disparage myself, said he, by the comparison 
with such a rascal, what art thou but a vagabond withont 
home or house, without stock or inheritance? boru to no 
possession of your own, but a pair of wings and a drone- 
pipe. Your livelihood is a universal plunder upon na- 
ture ; a freebooter over fields and gardens ; and, for the 

' Throughout there will be found a distinct individuality in the 
expression "good words." Promus, 4. (I was silent from good 
words, and my grief was renewed.) In Measure for Measure, Act 
iii., sc, 1, p. 76, we have : 

" Isab. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her 
name." 

And we find Bacon using tlie words ' * good hopes, " " good offices, ' ' 
" good wishes," "good thouglits," "good quiet," "good spare," 
etc As to tliis last expression, see p. 388. 

* Promus, 966. Time trieth troth. (Tempus arguit amicum.— 
Eras. Ad., 104. lime is the proof of a friend.) We iiave already 
called attention to Bacon's use of this word, as well as its use 
throughout the plays. See p. 183. 



524 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

sake of stealing will rob a nettle' as easily as a yiolct. 
Whereas I am a domestic animal, furnished with a native 
stock within myself. This laio^e castle (to show my im- 
provements in the mathematics^) is all built with my own 
hands, and the materials extracted altogether out of my 
own person.^ 

" 1 am glad, answered the bee, to hear you grant at 
least that 1 am come honestly by my wings and my voice ; 
for then, it seems, I am obliged to Heaven alone for my 
flights and my music ; and Providence could never have 
bestowed on me two such gifts, without designing them for 
the noblest ends. I visit indeed all the flowers and blos- 
soms of the field and garden ; but whatever I collect 
thence enriches myself, without the least injury to their 
beauty, their smell, or their taste.'* Now, for you and 
your skill in architecture and other mathematics, I have 
little to say : in that building of yours there might, for 
aught I know, have been labour and method enough ; but, 
by woeful experience for us both, it is too plain the mate- 
rials are nought ; and I hope you will henceforth take 
warning, and consider duration and matter, as well as 
method and art. You boast indeed of being obliged to no 
other creature, but of drawing and spinning out all from 
yourself ; that is to say, if we may judge of the liquor in 
the vessel by what issues out, you possess a good plentiful 
store of dirt and poison in your breast ; and, though I 
would by no means lessen or disparage your genuine stock 

^ Bacon was wont to apply this word " nettle" to the Papists, as 
we have seen at pp. 301 and 327. 

* Here see ch. 4 of Gulliver's Travels, pp. 212-17. 

3 Promus, 797a. (He fabricated out of himself like a spider.) 
Please see Novum Organum, Aph. 95, Book 2. 

■* Bacon was wont to say : " The empirical philosophers arc like to 
pismires ; they only lay up and use their store. The Rationalists 
are like to spiders ; they spin all out of their own bowels. But give 
me a philosopher, wdio like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering 
from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own 
virtue." (Bacon's Literary Works, vol. i,, p. 177.) And fail not 
to read in this connection Addison, vol. iv., pp. 286-96 and 304-8. 
And in the Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 11, we have : " As a 
good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of clolh, a 
bee gathers wax and honey out of many flowers, and makes a new 
bundle of all." In Addison we have : " The tenth and last species 
of women were made out of the bee : and happy is the man who 
gets such an one for his wife." See the article Addison, vol. iii., p. 
88. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 525 

of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an 
increase of both, to a little foreign assistance.^ Your 
inherent portion of dirt does not fail of acquisitions, by 
sweepings exhaled from below ; and one insect furnishes 
you with a share of poison to destroy another. So that, 
in short, the question comes all to this ; whether is the 
nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contem- 
plation of four inches round, by an overweening pride, 
feeding and engendering on itself, turns all into excrement 
and venom, producing nothing at all but fly-bane and a 
cobweb ; or that which, by a universal range, with long 
search, much study, true judgment, and distinction of 
things, brings home honey and wax. 

** This dispute was managed with such eagerness, 
clamour, and warmth, that the two parties of books, in 
arms below,^ stood silent awhile, waiting in suspense 
what would be the issue ; which was not long undeter- 
mined ; for the bee, grown impatient at so much loss of 
time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, without looking 
for a reply, and left the spider, like an orator, collected in 
himself, and just prepared to burst out. 

'^ It happened upon this emergency that ^sop broke 
silence first. He had been of late most barbarously treated 
by a strange effect of the regent's humanity, who had torn 
off his title-page, sorely defaced one half of his leaves, and 
chained him fast among the shelf of moderns. Where, 
soon discovering how high the quarrel was likely to pro- 
ceed, he tried all his arts, and turned himself to a thou- 
sand forms. At length, in the borrowed shape of an ass, 
the regent mistook him for a modern ; by which means 
he had time and opportunity to escape to the ancients, 
just when the spider and the bee were entering into their 
contest ; to which he gave his attention with a world of 
l^leasure, and when it was ended, swore in the loudest key 
that in all his life he had never known two cases so par- 
allel and adapt to each other as that in the window and 
this upon the shelves.' The disputants, said he, have 

^ Is this an allusion to. Buckingham's aid from Spain or the Pa- 
pists in Bacon's overthrow ? 

"^ The brooms were what the spider had to fear from below, as we 
have seen. 

' The controversy in the window was the side issue, while that 
upon the shelves was the chief one, the one between the ancients and 
moderns. See in this connection the short oration by Addison in favor 



526 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

admirably managed the dispute between them, have taken 
in the full strength of all that is to be said on both sides, 
and exhausted the substance of every argument 'pro and 
con. It is but to adjust the reasonings of both to the 
present quarrel, then to compare and apply the labours 
and fruits of each, as the bee has learnedly deduced them, 
and we shall find the conclusion fall plain and close upon 
the moderns and us. For pray, gentlemen, was ever any- 
thing so modern as the spider in his air, his turns, and 
his paradoxes ? he argues in the behalf of you, his brethren, 
and himself with many boastings of his native stock and 
great genius ; that he spins and spits wholly from himself, 
and scorns to own any obligation or assistance from v/ith- 
out. Then he displays to you his great skill in architec- 
ture and improvement in the mathematics. To all this 
the bee, as an advocate retained by us the ancients, thinks 
fit to answer, that, if one may judge of the great genius 
or inventions of the moderns by what they have produced, 
you will hardly have countenance to bear you out in boast- 
ing of either. Erect your schemes with as much method 
and skill as you please ; yet, if the materials be nothing 
but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of mod- 
ern brains), the edifice will conclude at last m a cobweb ; 
the duration of which, like that of other spiders' webs, 

of the new philosophy. (Addison, vol. vi., pp. 607-12.) On p. 610 
we have : " On no such grounds as these has Aristotle built his 
philosophy, who from his own brain furnished out all his lules of 
arts and sciences, and left nothing untouched on, nothing unre- 
garded, but truth." And again : " After Aristotle's fate amidst the 
waves of Euripus, a new race of Peripatetics started up, even worse 
than their founder, who handed their philosophy to after a.2:es in so 
thick an obscurity that it has preserved it from the satire and 
ridicule of all mankind, being understood by very few. Some there 
are to be found who spend their time amidst the rubbish which 
these commentators have filled the world with, and pore more than 
once on these i^odlike treasures of learning, and stick to them to no 
other purpose unless to show the world th'e vast pains they take of 
being deceived." In this article we find Bacon's expression " troop 
of forms," and his sharp and distinctly marked opinion as to Aristotle. 
And yet at p. 725 the reputed author of this masteily oration 
and literature is said never to have been able to sa}^ a word in Par- 
liament. While he was Secretary of State it is said, p. 728 : " It was 
his official business to write to Hanover that Queen Anne was dead : 
he found it so difficult to express himself suitably lo his own notions 
of the importance of the event, that the lords of the regency were 
obliged to employ a Mr. Southwell, one of the clerks." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 5^7 

may be imputed to their being forgotten, or neglected, or 
hid in a corner.i For anything else of genuine that the 
moderns may pretend to, I canot recollect ; unless it be 
a large vein of wrangling and satire, much of a nature 
and substance with the spider's poison ; which, however, 
they pretend to spit wholly out of themselves, is improved 
by the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and vermin 
of the age. As for the ancients, we are content, with the 
bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings 
and our voice : that is to say, our flights and our lan- 
guage. For the rest, whatever we have got has been by 
infinite labour and search, and ranging through every 
corner of nature ; the difference is, that, instead of dirt 
and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with 
honey and wax ; thus furnishing mankind with the two 
noblest things, which are sweetness and light. " (Swift, 
pp. 176-181.) 

And on p. 182 we have : 

" All things violently tending to a decisive battle, 
Fame, who much frequented, and had a large apartment 
formerly assigned her in the regal library, fled up straight 
to Jupiter, to whom she delivered a faithful account of 
all that passed between the two parties below ; for among 
the gods she always tells truth. ^ Jove, in great concern, 
convokes a council in the milky way. The senate as- 
sembled, he declares the occasion of convening them ; a 
bloody battle just impendent between two mighty armies 
of ancient and modern creatures, called books, wherein the 
celestial interest was but too deeply concerned. Momus,' 

^ See ch. 5 of Gulliver's Travels, pp. 217-25. In Book 1 of the De 
Augmentis we have : " For the human mind, if it act upon matter, 
and contemplates the nature of things, and the works of God, operates 
according to the stuff, and is limited thereby ; but if it works upon 
itself, as the spider does, then it has no end ; but produces cobwebs 
of learning, admirable indeed for the fineness of the thread, but of 
no substance or profit." Note in Addison and in the plays the many 
references to the ' ' spider' ' and the ' ' bee. " As to the ' ' bee, ' ' see Henry 
v., Acti., sc. 2, p. 472, And in a Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act. iv., 
sc. 1, p. 327, we have : 

" Bot. Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get your weapon in your 
hand, and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a thistle ; 
and, good monsieur, bring me the honey -bag." 

2 Prom us, 329. (The Father [? Jupiter] is favorable to either 
destiny.) 

2 See what Bacon says concerning Momus, p. 86. And in his 



528 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

the patron of tlie moderns, made an excellent speech in 
their favour, which was answered by Pallas,^ the protec- 
tress of the ancients. The assembly was divided in their 
affections ; and Jupiter commanded the book of fate to be 
laid before him. Immediately were brought by Mercury 
three large volumes in folio, containing memoirs of all 
things past, present, and to come. The clasps were of 
silver double gilt, the covers were of celestial turkey 
leather, and the paper such as here on earth might pass 
almost for vellum. Jupiter, having silently read the de- 
cree, would communicate the import to none, but pres- 
ently shut up the book. 

" Without the doors of this assembly there attended a 
vast number of light, nimble gods, menial servants to 
Jupiter : these are his ministering instruments in all 
affairs below. They travel in a caravan, more or less 
together, and are fastened to each other, like a link of 
galley-slaves, by a light chain, which passes from them to 
Jupiter's great toe :"* and yet, in receiving or delivering a 
message, they may never approach above the lowest step 
of his throne, where he and they whisper to each other 
through a large hollow trunk. These deities are called 
by mortal men accidents or events ; but the gods call 
them second causes.^ Jupiter having delivered his mes- 

Essay entitled " Of Building," he says : " Neither is it ill air only that 
maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets ; and if you will consult 
with Momus, ill neighbors." As to Momus and the window in the 
breast, see Addison, vol. iv., p. 196, the introduction to the Anatomy 
of Melancholy, vol. i., p. 55, and see introductory matter to the 
A. D. B. Mask. 

^ As to Pallas, please see, in ch. 13 of Book 2 of the De Augmentis, 
Bacon's interpretation of the fable of "Perseus, or War." For 
battles this was the model. This battle was probably designed to 
represent the overthrow of the old and the establishment of the new 
order of things under the Baconian system. 

'■^ Bacon says : " For on the threshold of philosophy, where second 
causes appear to absorb the attention, some oblivion of the highest 
cause may ensue ; but when the mind goes deeper, and sees tiie 
dependence of causes and the works of Providence, it will easily 
perceive, according to the mythology of the poets, that the upper 
link of Nature's chain is fastened to Jupiter's throne." (De Aug- 
mentis, Bohn ed., Book 1, p. 32.) 

^ See the word Providence as used in connection with the play of 
The Tempest. Bacon says : " For certain it is that God worketh 
nothing in nature but by second causes ; and if they would have it 
otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in favour towards 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 529 

sage to a certain number of these divinities, they flew im- 
mediately down to the pinnacle of the regal library, and 
consulting a few minutes, entered unseen, and disposed 
the parties according to their orders. 

" Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to 
mind an ancient prophecy which bore no very good face 
to his children the moderns, beat his flight to the region 
of a malignant deity called Criticism/ She dwelt on the 
top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla ; there Momus 
found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of number- 
less volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat Igno- 
rance, her father and husband, blind with age ; at her 
left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of 
paper herself had torn. There was opinion, her sister, 
light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy and 
perpetually turning. About her played her children, 
Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, 
Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had 
claws like a cat ; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled 
those of an ass ; her teeth fallen out before, her eyes 
turned inward, as if she looked only upon herself ; her 
diet was the overflowing of her own gall ; her spleen was 
so large as to stand prominent, like a dug of the first 
rate f nor wanted excrescencies in form of teats, at which 

God ; and nothing else but to offer to the author of truth the unclean 
sacrifice of a lie." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 267.) In the Serious 
Reflections of Crusoe, p. 9, we have : " All motions to good or evil 
are in the soul. Outward objects are but second causes." 

^ In Addison, vol. iv., p. 149, we have : " Envy and cavil are the 
natural fruits of laziuess and ignorance ; which was probably the 
reason that in the heathen mythology, Moraus is said to be the son 
of Nox, and Somnus of Darkness and Sleep. Idle men, who have 
not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are 
ever apt to detract from others ; as ignorant men are very subject to 
decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes 
to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves 
by the name of critics, are the genuine defendants of those two 
illustrious ancestors." Any number of these relations might be 
introduced, but we are now but bounding the field ; nor will space 
permit us to do more than to touch upon points as we go. 

■2 Bacon in one of his Apophthegms says: "Trojan would say, 
' That the king's exchequer was like the spleen ; for when that did 
swell the whole body did pine.' " (Bacon's Literary Works, vol. ii., 
p. 141.) As to the word " dug" we from Romeo and Juliet, Act i., 
sc. 3, p. 43, quote as follows : 



630 THllEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

a crew of ugly monsters were greedily sucking ; and, what 
is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased 
faster than the sucking could diminish it. Goddess, said 
Momus, can you sit idly here while our devout worship- 
pers, the moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel 
battle, and perhaps now lying under the swords of their 
enemies? who then hereafter will sacrifice or build altars 
to our divinities?^ Haste, therefore, to the British isle, 
and, if possible, prevent their destruction ; while I make 
factions among the gods, and gain them over to our party. ^ 

" Momus, having thus delivered himself, stayed not for 
an answer, but left the goddess to her own resentment. 
Up she rose in a rage, and, as it is the form upon such 
occasions, began a soliloquy : It is I (said she) who gave 
wisdom to infants and idiots ; by me children grew wiser 
tlian their parents, by me beaux became politicians, and 
school-boys judges of philosophy ; by me sophisters debate 
and conclude upon the depths of knowledge ; and coffee- 
house wits, instinct by me, can correct an author's style, 
and display his minutest errors without understanding a 
syllable of his matter or his language ; by me striplings 
spend their judgment, as they do their estate, before it 
comes into their hands. It is I who have deposed wit and 
knowledge from their empire over poetry, and advanced 
myself in their stead. And shall a few upstart ancients 
dare to oppose me ? — But come, my aged parent, and you, 
my children dear, and thou, my beauteous sister ; let us 
ascend my chariot, and haste to assist our devout moderns, 
who are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by 
that grateful smell which from thence reaches my nostrils. 

" The goddess and her train, having mounted the 



" Na}^ I do bear a brain : — but, as I said. 
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple 
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool ! 
To see it tetchy, ^and fall out with the dug." 

^ This was Bacon's battle to down the old forms and superstitions 
of men, and thus to make way for the more permanent advent of 
his philosophy, 

2 This was to be done by the side issue and the foreign assistance. 
At the present writing we are of the impression that these papers 
may have in part been prepared by Bacon prior to his fall, and 
which necessitated their remodelling to suit that event, and hence 
the side issue in this battle. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 531 

chariot, which was drawn by tame geese/ flew over in- 
finite regions, shedding her influence in due phxces, till 
at length she arrived at her beloved island of Britain ; 
but in hovering over its metropolis, what blessings did she 
not let fall upon her seminaries of Gresham and Covent- 
garden ! And now she reached the fatal plain of St. 
James' library, at what time the two armies were upon 
the point to engage : where, entering with all her caravan 
unseen ; and landing upon a case of shelves, now desert, 
but once inhabited by a colony of virtuosoes,^ she stayed 
a while to observe the posture of both armies. 

" But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill 
her thoughts and move in her breast : for at the head of 
a troop of modern bowmen she cast her eyes upon her son 
Wotton,^ to whom the fates had assigned a very short 
thread. Wotton, a young hero, whom an unknown father 
of mortal race begot by stolen embraces with this o-oddess. 
He was the darling of his mother above all her children, 
and she resolved to go and comfort him. But first, ac- 
cording to the good old custom of deities, she cast about 
to change her sha])e, for fear the divinity of her counte- 
nance might dazzle his mortal sight and overcharge the rest 
of his senses. She therefore gathered up her person into 
an octavo compass : her body grew white and arid, and 
split in pieces with dryness ; the thick turned into paste- 
board, and the thin into pai)er ; upon which her parents 

^ At p. 455 we see that a flock of geese means " a senate." 

^ Note the oft use of thi3 word in Addison. 

^ Is this an allusion to Sir Henry Wotton, to whom Bacon, October 
20th, 1620, wrote thus ? 

" My veky Good Cousin : The letter which I received from .your 
Lordship upon your going to sea, was more than a compensation 
for any former omission ; and I shall ever be very glad to entertain 
a correspondence with you in both kinds which j^ou WTite of. For 
the latter, I am now read}'- for you, having sent you some ore of 
that mine. I thank you for your favors to Mr. Meantys, and I pray 
continue the same. So wishing you out of your honorable exile, 
and phiced in a better orb, I rest," etc. 

Wotton was a man of k'tters, and was at this time upon an em- 
bassy in Germany, and the letter is said to have been accompanied 
with three copies of the Novum Organum. (Bacon's Letters, vol. 
vii., p 13L) And on p. 451 it will appear that in 1023-24 Bucking- 
ham made him Provost of the College of Eaton, a position mucli 
sought by Bacon. See Britannica article on Wotton, who was a 
favorite diplomatist of James the First, and spent eight years in 
Spain, France, and Germany. And see p. 521, note 2. 



532 THREAD OF THE LABYHIN"Tn. 

and children artfully strewed a black juice, or decoction 
of gall and soot, in form of letters : her head, and voice, 
and spleen, kept their primitive form ; and that which 
before was a cover of skin did still continue so. In this 
guise she marched on towards the moderns, undistinguish- 
able in shape and dress from the divine Bentley, Wotton's 
dearest friend. Brave Wotton, said the goddess, why do 
our troops stand idle here, to spend their present vigour 
and opportunity of the day ? away, let us haste to the 
generals, and advise to give the onset immediately. Hav- 
ing spoken thus, she took the ugliest of her monsters, full 
glutted from her spleen, and flung it invisibly into his 
mouth, which flying straight up into his head, squeezed 
out his eye-balls, gave him a distorted look, and half over- 
turned his brain. Then she privately ordered two of her 
beloved children, Dulness and Ill-manners, closely to 
attend his person in all encounters. Having thus ac- 
coutred him, she vanished in a mist, and the hero per- 
ceived it was the goddess his mother."^ 

Bacon upon his fall, and for a time, was doubtless 
somewhat staggered in his faith, but see Sonnets 119 and 
123, pp. 28 and 105. Let it here be investigated as to 
what Othello is intended to personate and what Des- 
demona. From Act iv., sc. 2, p. 523, of that play we 
quote as follows : 

" 0th. Had it pleas'd Heaven 

To try me with affliclion ; had He rain'd 
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head ; 
Steep 'd me in poverty to the very lips ; 
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes ; 
I should have found in some part of my soul 

^ And in the article at p. 190 we have : " Then Pindar darted a 
javelin so large and weighty, that scarce a dozen cavaliers, as cavaliers 
are in our degenerate days, could raise it from the ground ; yet he 
threw it with ease, and it went, by an unerring hand, singing through 
the air ; nor could the modern have avoided present death if he had 
not luckily opposed tlie shield that had been given him by Venus." 
Is this " shield " an allusion to the sonnets ? See p. 306. Bacon says : 
" Pindar, in his praise of Hiero, says, with his usual elegance, that 
he cropped the tops of every virtue ; and methinks it would greatly 
contribute to the encouragement and honour of mankind, to have 
these tops, or utmost extents of human nature, collected from faithful 
history : I mean the greatest length whereto human nature of itself 
has ever gone, in the several endowments of body and mind." (De 
Augmentis, ch. 1, Book 4, Bohn's ed,, p. 152.) See p. 158, note 2. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 533 

A drop of patience : but, alas ! to make me 

iV fixed figure, for the time of scorn 

To point his slow unmoving finger at ;— 

Yet could I bear that too ; "well, very well : — 

But there, where I have garner 'd up ray heart ; 

Where either I must live, or bear no life ; 

The fountain from the which my current runs. 

Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence. 

Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads 

To knot and gender in !— turn thy complexion there, 

Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubim ; 

Ay, there, look grim as hell !" 

At p. 175 of the article under review we have : " Here 
a solitary ancient, squeezed up among a whole shelf of 
moderns, offered fairly to dispute the case, and to prove 
by manifest reason that the priority was due to them from 
long possession, and in regard to their prudence, an- 
tiquity, and, above all, their great merits towards the 
moderns. But these denied the premises, and seemed 
very much to wonder how the ancients could pretend to 
insist upon their antiquity, when it was so plain (if they 
w^ent to that) that the moderns were much the more 
ancient of the two. As for any obligations they owed to 
the ancients, they renounced them all. It is true, said 
they, we are informed some few of our party have been so 
mean to borrow their substance from you ; but the rest, 
infinitely the greater number (and especially we French 
and English), were so far from stooping to so base an 
example, that there never passed, till this very hour, six 
words between us." 

Here, again, we have Bacon's distinctive views as to the 
moderns being the true ancients, and as presented in con- 
nection with the word "old" in Sonnet 59. See pp. 
96-99. 

In order to conform this article to the times it has been 
tampered with, and some further than by the mere sub- 
stitution of names. Aside from the " chasms" left in the 
manuscript, there are, we think, omissions that break 
relations. 

We here turn to the Defoe work entitled "The Con- 
solidator ; or. Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the 
World in the Moon," put forth by Defoe in 1705, and 
where in the expression " chair of reflection" we have an 
allusion, we think, to the methods of the Novum Or- 



534 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

(I 

ganum. From pp. 258-67 of the work, Talboy ed., we 
quote as follows : 

" In examining the multitude and variety of these most 
admirable glasses for the assisting the optics, or indeed 
the formation of a new perceptive facult}^, it was, you 
may be sure, most surprising, to find there that art had 
exceeded nature ; and the power of vision was assisted to 
that prodigious degree, as even to distinguish nonentity 
itself ; and in these strange engines of light it could not 
but be very pleasing, to distinguish plainly betwixt being 
and matter, and to come to a determination in the so 
long-canvassed dispute of substance, vel mateiHalis, vel 
spirihialis ; and I can solidly affirm, that in all our con- 
tention between entity and nonentity, there is so little 
worth meddling with, that had we had these glasses some 
ages ago, we should have left troubling our heads with it. 

" I take upon me, therefore, to assure my reader, that 
whoever pleases to take a journey, or vo}'age, or flight, up 
to these lunar regions, as soon as ever he comes ashore 
there, will presently be convinced of the reasonableness of 
immaterial substance, and the immortality, as well as the 
immateriality 'of the soul :' he will no sooner look into 

* As to Bacon's belief in the soul as an immaterial substance, see 
p. 261, note 3. He also says : " For as the substance of the soul 
was not, in its creation, extracted or deduced from the mass of 
heaven and earth, but immediately inspired by God ; and as the 
laws of heaven and earth are the proper subjects of philosophy, no 
knowledge of the substance of the rational soul can be had from 
philosophy, but must be derived from the same Divine inspiration, 
whence the substance thereof originally proceeded." (De Augmen- 
tis, Bohn ed., ch. 3, Book 4, p. 173.) In Addison, vol. iv., p. 104, 
we have : " His substance is within the substance of every being, 
whether material or immaterial, and as intimately present to it, as 
that Being is to itself. It would be an imperfection in him, were he 
able to remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself 
from anything he has created, or from any part of that space which 
is diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to speak of him 
in the language of the old philosopher, he is a Being whose centre is 
everywhere, and whose circumference nowhere." And from an 
article beginning on p. 112 we have : " It is, indeed, impossible for 
an infinite Being to remove himself from any of his creatures, but 
though he cannot withdraw his essence from us, which would argue 
an imperfection in him, he can withdraw from us all the joys and 
consolations of it. His presence may, perhaps, be necessary to sup- 
port us in our existence ; but he may leave this our existence to 
itself, with regard to its happiness or misery. For in this sense, he 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 535 

tliese explicating glasses, but lie will be able to know tlie 
separate meaning of body, soul, spirit, life, motion, death, 
and a thousand things that wise men puzzle themselves 
about here, because they are not fools enough to under- 
stand. . . . 

"As to seeing beyond death, all the glasses I looked 
into for that purpose, made but little of it ; and these 
were the only tubes that I found defective ; for here I 
could discern nothing but clouds, mists, and thick, dark, 
hazy weather ; but revolving in my mind, that I had 
read a certain book in our own country, called Nature, 
it presently occurred, that the conclusion of it, to ail such 
as gave themselves the trouble of making out those foolish 
things called inferences, was always, Look up ; upon 
which, turning one of their glasses up, and erecting the 
point of it towards the zenith, I saw these words in the 
air REVELATION in large capital letters. 

" I had like to have raised the mob upon me for looking 
upright with this glass ; for this, they said, was prying 
into the mysteries of the great eye^ of the world ; that we 
ought to inquire no further than he has informed us, and 
to believe what he had left us more obscure : upon this, 
I laid down the glasses, and concluded, that Ave had Moses 
and the prophets, and should be never the likelier to be 
taught by one come from the moon. 

" In short, I found, indeed, they had a great deal more 
knowledge of things than we in this world ; and that 
nature, science, and reason, had obtained great improve- 
ments in the lunar world ; but as to religion, it was the 
same, equally resigned to and concluded in faith and re- 
demption ; so I shall give the world no great information 
of these things. 

'*I come next to some other strange acquirements ob- 
tained by the helps of these glasses ; and particularly for 
the discovering the imperceptibles of nature ; such as, the 



may cast us away from his presence, and take liis holy spirit from 
us." See also article pp. 128-32 and 143-48. 

' Concerning this use of the word " eye," we quote Bacon as fol- 
lows : '' CiviHiistory, in general, may be divided into tln-ee particu- 
lar kinds, viz.. sacred, civil, and literary ; the latter whereof being 
wanting, the history of the world appears like the statue of Poly- 
phemus, without its|eye ; the part that best shows the life and spirit of 
the person. " (De Augmentis, Book 2, ch. 4, p.^84, Bohn ed.) See p. 468. 



?3G THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

soul, thought, honesty, religion, virginity, and a hundred 
other nice things, too small for human discerning. 

" The discoveries made by these glasses, as to the soul, 
are of a very diverting variety ; some hieroglyphical and 
emblematical, and some demonstrative. 

" The hieroglyphical discoveries of the soul make it 
appear in the image of its Maker ; and the analogy is re- 
markable, even in the very simile ; for as they represent 
the original^ of nature as one great eye,'' illuminating as 
well as discerning all things ; so the soul, in its allegori- 
cal, or hieroglyphical resemblance, appears as a great eye, 
embracing the man, enveloping, operating, and informing 
every part ; from whence those sort of people who we false- 
ly call politicians,^ affecting so much to put out this great 
eye, by acting against their common understandings, are 
very aptly represented by a great eye with six or seven 
pair of spectacles on ; not but that the eye of their souls 
may be clear enough of itself, as to the common under- 
standing ; but that they happen to have occasion to look 
sometimes so many ways at once, and to judge, conclude, 
and understand so many contrary ways upon one and the 
same thing, that they are fain to put double glasses upon 
their understanding, as we look at the solar eclipses, to 
represent them in different lights, lest their judgments 

^ To this Baconian use of the word " original " we have already 
called attention. Please see note 2, p. 41. We here give its tech- 
nical sense of use by the master hand. Bacon says : " Next, there- 
fore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in its original ; that 
is, in the attributes and acts of God, so far as they are revealed to 
man, and may be observed with sobriety. But here we are not to 
seek it by the name of learning ; for all learning is knowledge ac- 
quired, but all knowledge in God is original : we must, therefore, 
look for it under the name of wisdom or sapience, as the Scripture 
calls it." (De Augmentis, Book 1, p. 54, Bohn ed.) 

^ From Bacon's Literary Works, vol. ii., p. 177, we quote as fol- 
lows : " Sir Francis Bacon (who was always for moderate counsels) 
when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church of 
England as would in effect make it no Church ; said thus to liim, 
Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of Englarid ; and if there he a 
speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off ; but he were a 
strange oculist icho icould put out the eye." See quotation, p. 427. 

2 Bacon says : " And this holds good likewise in politics, though 
the glasses are different ; for the divine glass in which we ought to 
behold ourselves is the Word of God, but the political glass is noth- 
iug else than the state of the world or times wherein we live." (De 
Augmentis, ch. 2, Book 8.) And as to the " pohticians," see our 
quotation from Bacon at p. 181. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 537 

should not be wheedled into a compliance with the hellish 
rosohitions of their wills ; and this is what 1 call the em- 
blematic representation of the soul. 

" As for the demonstration of the soul's existence, it is 
a plain case^ by these explicative glasses, that it is : some 
have pretended to give us the parts ; and we have heard 
of chirurgeons that could read an anatomical lecture on 
the parts of the soul ; and these pretend it to be a creature 
in form, whether chameleon or salamander, authors have 
not determined ; nor is it completely discovered when ifc 
comes into the body, or how it goes out, or where its 
locality or habitation is, while it is a resident. 

" But they very aptly show it like a prince in his seat, 
in the middle of his palace the brain, issuing out his in- 
cessant orders' to innumerable troops^ of nerves, sinews, 
muscles, tendons, veins, arteries, fibres, capilarii, and use- 
ful officers, called organici, who faithfully execute all the 
parts of sensation, locomotion, concoction, etc.; and in 
the hundred thousandth part of a momxcnt, return with 
particular messages for information, and demand new 
instructions. If any part of his kingdom, the body, 
suffers a depredation, or an invasion of the enemy, the 
expresses fly to the seat of the soul, the brain, and imme- 
diately are ordered back to smart, that the body may of 
course send some messengers to complain ; immediately, 
other expresses are despatched to the tongue, with orders 
to cry out, that the neighbors may come in and help, or 
friends send for the chirurgeon. Upon the application, 
and a cure, all is quiet, and the same expresses are de- 
spatched to the tongue to be hush, and say no more of ifc 
till farther orders. All this is as plain to be seen in these 

' Please see p. 56, note 1. And as to the word " belly," there 
mentioned, Bacon says: "For the rebellions of the belly are the 
worst. As for discontentments, they are in the body politic like two 
humours in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural heat 
and to inflame." (Essay entitled " Of "Seditions and Troubles.") 
And in ch. 1 of Book 2 of the De Augmentis, Bohn ed. , p. 73, Bacon 
says : " Though men judge well who assert that learning should be 
referred to action, yet by reposing too confidently in this opinion, 
they are apt to fall into the error of the ancient fable, which repre- 
sented the members of the body at war with the stomach, because 
it alone, of all the parts of the frame, seemed to rest, and absorb 
all the nourishment." And see our quotation at p. 70. 

- Here w^e again have the Baconian use of the word " troops. " 
See, please, p. 113. 



538 THREAD OF THE LABTRIXTH. 

engines/ as the moon of our world from the world in the 
moon. 

" As the being, nature, and situation of human soul is 
thus spherically and mathematically discovered, I could 
not find any second thoughts about it in all their books, 
whether of their own composition or by translation ; for 
it was the general received notion, that there could not be 
a greater absurdity in human knowledge, than to employ 
the thoughts in questioning what is as plainly known by 
its consequences as if seen with the eye ; and that to 
doubt the being or extent of the soul's operation, is to 
employ her against herself ; and therefore, when I began 
to argue with my old philosopher,^ against the immate- 
riality and immortality of this mystery we call soul, he 
laughed at me, and told me, he found we had none of 
their glasses in our world ; and bid me send all our scep- 
tics, soul- sleepers, our Cowards, Bakers, Kings, and Bake- 
wells, up to him into the moon, if they wanted dem- 
onstrations ; where, by the help of their engines, they 
would make it plain to them that the great eye being one 
vast intellect, infinite and eternal, all inferior life is a 
degree of himself, and as exactly represents him as one 
little flame the whole mass of fire f that it is therefore 

' To the unusual use of this word " engine" by Bacon, and occur- 
ring through all of these writings, we have already called attention. 
See pp. 69 and 109. And in Aph. 50, Book 2 of the Novum Or- 
ganum he says : " The third of our seven methods is referred to 
that great practical engine of nature, as w^ell as of art, cold and 
heat." In the De Augmentis, Bolm ed,. Book 1, p. 57, he says : 
" Again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fatliers of the 
Church were well versed in all the learning of the heathens, insomuch 
that the edict of the Emperor Julian prohibiting Christians the 
schools and exercises, was accounted a more pernicious engine 
against the faith than all the sanguinary persecutions of his pred- 
ecessors." See p. 94 of this work as to Julian, In The Pilgrim's 
Progress, p. 123, we have : " They also showed him some of the 
engines with which some of his servants had done wonderful things. 
They showed him Moses' rod ; the hammer and nail with which 
Jaelslew Sisera ; the pitchers, trumpets, and lamps too, with which 
Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian." In Addison, vol. ii., 
p. 449, we have: " I consider the body as a system of tubes and 
glands, or to use a more rustic phrase a bundle of pipes and strainers, 
fitted to one anotlier after so wonderful a manner, as to make a 
proper engine for the soul to work with." 

2 As to the old philosopher, see p. 457, note 2, and Addison, p. 534, 
note 1. 

^ At the height of the moon, we, witli Bacon's views, as we have 
seen, reach the first rudiment of celestial tiame. See p. 162. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 539 

incapable of dissolution, being like its original in duration, 
as well as in its powers and faculties, but that it goes and 
returns by emission, regression, as the great eye governs 
and determines ; and this was plainly made out by the 
figure I had seen it in, viz., an eye, the exact image of its 
Maker : it is true, it was darkened by ignorance, folly and 
crime, and therefore obliged ta w^ear spectacles ; but 
though there were defects or interruptions in its operation, 
they were more in its nature ; which, as it had its imme- 
diate efflux from the great eye, its return to him must 
partake of himself, and could not but be of a quality uu- 
comeatable, by casualty or death. 

*' From this discourse we the more willingly adjourned 
our present thoughts, I being clearly convinced of the 
matter ; and as for our learned doctors, with their second 
and third thoughts, I told him I would recommend them 
to the man in the moon for their illumination, which if 
they refused to accept, it was but just they should remain 
in a wood, where they are, and are like to be, puzzling 
themselves about demonstrations, squaring of circles, and 
converting oblique into right angles, to bring out a 
mathematical clockwork soul, that will go till the weight 
is down, and then stand still till they know not who must 
wind it up again. ^ 

"However, I cannot pass over a very strange and ex- 
traordinary piece of art which this old gentleman informed 
me of, and that was an engine to screw a man into him- 
self : perhaps our countrymen may be at some difficulty to 
comprehend these things by my dull description ; and to 
such, I cannot but recommend a journey in my engine to 
the moon. 

" This machine that I am speaking of, contains a mul- 
titude of strange springs and screws, and a man that puts 
himself into it, is very, insensibly carried into vast specu- 
lations, reflections, and regular debates with himself. 
They have a very hard name for it in those parts ; but if 
1 were to give it an English name, it should be called, the 
Cogitator, or the chair of reflection.^ 

" And first, the person that is seated here feels some 
pain in passing some negative springs, that are wound 

^ Here see the Swift article on the " Mechanical Operation of the 
Spirit." 
- Here come allusions, we think, to the Novum Organum. 



540 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

lip, effectually to shut out all injecting, disturbing 
thou^'hts, and tlie better to prepare him for the operation 
that IS to follow : and this is without doubt a very rational 
way ; for when a man can absolutely shut out all manner 
of thinking, but what he is upon, he shall think the more 
intensely upon the one object before him. 

" This operation past, here are certain screws that draw 
direct lines from every angle of the engine to the brain of 
the man, and, at the same time, other direct lines to his 
eye ; at the other end of which lines, there are glasses 
which convey or reflect the objects the person is desirous 
to think upon. 

" Then the main wheels are turned, -which wind up 
according to their sev^eral offices ; this the memory, that 
the understanding, a third the* will, a fourth the thinking 
faculty ; and these being put all into regular motions, 
pointed by direct lines to their proper objects, and per- 
fectly uninterrupted by the intervention of whimsey, 
chimera, and a thousand flattering demons that gender in 
the fancy, but are effectually locked out as before, assist 
one another to receive right notions, and form just ideas 
of the things they are directed to ; and from thence the 
man is empowered to make right conclusions, to think 
and act like himself, suitable to the sublime qualities his 
soul was originally blessed with. 

" There never was a man went into one of these think- 
ing engines, but he came wiser out than he was before ; 
and I am persuaded it would be a more effectual cure to 
our deism, atheism, scepticism, and all other seisms, than 
ever the Italian's engine for curing the gout by cutting 
off the toe. 

"This is a most wonderful engine, and performs ad- 
mirably, and my author gave me extraordinary accounts 
of the good effects of it ; and I cannot but tell my reader, 
that our snblunar world suffers millions of inconveniences 
for want of this thinking engine : I have had a great many 
projects in my head, how to bring our people to regular 
thinking, but it is in vain without this engine ; and how 
to get the model of it I know not ; how to screw up the 
will, the understanding, and the rest of the powers ; how 
to bring the eye, the thought, the fancy and the memory, 
into mathematical order, and obedient to mechanic opera- 
tion. Help Boyle, Norris, Newton, Manton, Hammond, 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 541 

Tillotson, and all the learned race ! Help philosophy, 
divinity, phjsics, economics ! All is in vain, a mechanic 
chair of reflection is the only remedy that ever I found in 
my life for this work." 

And from p. 243 we continue thus : 

" This pushes him upon search after mediums for the 
recovery of his sight, and away he runs to school to art 
and science, and there he is furnished with horoscopes, 
microscopes, telescopes, c^liscopes, money-scopes, and the 
d — 1 and all of glasses, to help and assist his moon-hlind 
understanding. These, with wonderful skill, and ages of 
application, after wandering through bogs and wildernesses 
of guess, conjectures, supposes, calculations, and he knows 
not what, which he meets with in physics, politics, ethics, 
astronomy, mathematics, and such sort of bewildering 
things, bring him with vast difficulty to a little, minute 
spot, called Demonstration ; and as not one in ten thousand 
ever finds the way thither, but are lost in the tiresome 
uncouth journey, so they that do, it is so long before they 
come there, that they are grown old and good for little in 
the journey ; and no sooner have they obtained a ^-limmer- 
ing of this universal eyesight, this eclaircissement general, 
but they die, and have hardly time to show the way to 
those that come after. ^ 

" Now as the earnest search after this thing called 
demonstration filled me with desires of seeing everything, 
so my observations of the strange multitude of mysteries 
I met with in all men's actions here, spurred my curiosity 
to examine, if the great eye of the world had no people to 
whom he had given a clearer eyesight, or, at least, that 
made a better use of it than we had here. 

" If, pursuing this search, I was much delighted at my 
arrival into China, it cannot be thought strange ; since 
there we find knowledge as much advanced beyond our 
common pitch, as it was pretended to be derived from a 
more ancient original. 

" We are told, that in the early age of the world, the 
strength of invention exceeded all that ever has been 
arrived to since : that we, in these latter ages, having lost 
all that pristine strength of reason and invention, which 

^ To preserve and bear forward these attainments to those that 
come after was one, if not the chief object to be accomplished by 
the New Atlantis. 



542 THllEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

died with the ancients in the Flood, and receiving no 
help from that age, have by long search arrived at several 
remote parts of knowledge, by tlie helps of reading, con- 
versation, and experience ; but that all amounts to no 
more than faint imitations, apings, and resemblances of 
what was known in those masterly ages.i 

^' Now if it be true, as is hinted before, that the Chinese 
empire was peopled long before the flood, and that they 
were not destroyed in the general deluge in the days of 
Noah ; it is no such strange thing that they should so 
much outdo us in this sort of eyesight we call general 
knowledge, since the perfections bestowed on nature, when 
in her youth and prime, met with no general suffocation 
by that calamity. 

*' But if I was extremely delighted with the extraor- 
dinary things I saw in those countries, you cannot but 
imagine I was exceedingly moved when I heard of a lunar 
world ; and that the way was passable from these parts. ^ 

" I had heard of a world in the moon among some of 
our learned philosophers, and Moore, as I have been told, 
had a moon in his head f but none of the fine pretenders, 
no, not bishop Wilkins, ever found mechanic engines 
whose motion was sufficient to attempt the passage." * 

Here let the New Atlantis, opening with its voyage to 
China and Japan, be called into relation with '' The Con- 

' See tliese views as expressed in the New Atlantis. 

2 Bacon says : " The common idea that the universe is rightly divided 
and distinguished as it were by globes, so that there is one system of 
celestial and another of sublunar}^ bodies, seems to have been intro- 
duced not virithout reason, if only it be held with moderation. For 
no doubt but that the regions above and below the lunar orb, together 
with the bodies contained therein, differ much and greatly. And 
yet this is not more certain than that the bodies of both globes have 
common inclinations, passions, and motions." See this article, 
Phil Works, vol. v., p. 437, and see our quotation at p. 85 ; also 
see pp. 161-164. 

2 See Bacon's allusion, p. 485, to his having a feather in his head. 

■* Here follow strictures concerning the mentioned article by Swift 
entitled " The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit," and which re- 
sulted, it is said, in burning up all of the v^it and fancy of the 
author. It is indeed a biting satire against the organization and 
immoralities of what in the foregoing Defoe articles is called the 
Hell-Fire Club, and w^as aimed, we think, at the Duke of Bucking- 
ham. This article it evidently was that produced the already men- 
tioned battle in St. James' Library. Promus, 937. (I lost my honour 
in talking ill and in ill listening.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 543 

solidator," and our thread is again connected. In the 
New Atlantis we may see the menT;ioned antediluvian state 
of knowledge commented upon as to China as well as to 
Atlantis or America, and where Bacon says : 

" Yon shall understand (that which perhaps you will 
scarce think credible) that about three thousand years 
ago, or somewhat more, the navigation of the world (espe- 
cially for remote voyages), was greater than at this day. 
Do not think with yourselves that I know not how much 
it is increased with you within these six-score years : I 
know it well : and yet I say greater then than now ; 
whether it was, that the example of the ark, that saved the 
remnant of men from the universal deluge, gave men con- 
fidence to adventure upon the waters ; or what it was ; 
but such is the truth. The Phoenicians, and especially 
the Tyrians, had great fleets. So had the Carthaginians, 
their colony, which is yet further west. Toward the east, 
the shipping of Egypt and of Palestina was likewise great. 
China also, and the great Atlantis (that you call America), 
which have now but junks and canoes, abounded then in 
tall ships. This island (as appeareth by faithful registers 
of those times) had then fifteen hundred strong ships, of 
great content. Of all this there is with you sparing mem- 
ory, or none ; but we have large knowledge thereof.' 

" At that time, this land was know'n and frequented by 
the ships and vessels of all the nations before named." 
(Bacon's Philosophical Works, vol. iii., p. 140.) At pp. 
163-64 may be seen Bacon's proposed engines even to 
compassing of the mechanism of flight. 

And at p. 230 of " The Consolidator" we find repre- 
sented such a piece of mechanism in a gigantic bird, 
whose numbered feathers stand for the political representa- 
tives of the nation. This bird was designed in part, we 
think, to concern or represent the Parliament and reign 
of James the First. ^ We, however, find some substituted 
and some interpolated expressions to conform it to the 
Defoe period. As to the subject of glasses, referred to in 
" The Consolidator," please see the New Atlantis, pp. 161 

' Was this knowledge, in part, derived from ancient coin ? See, 
please, the "Dialogue on Medals" in Addison, vol. i., pp. 253-355, 
and see our quotation at p. 385. 

^ Was it designed to concern, in part, the mentioned confusion of 
Henry the Eighth at p. 221 ? 



544 THREAD OF THE LABYRIN-TH. 

and 1G2. The knowledge displayed generally in the New 
Atlantis will be found spread into all of these writings, 
even into the travels of Gulliver.^ 

In ^' The Oonsolidator/' at p. 216, we may note Bacon's 
distinctive views as to the Oopernican system in these 
words: "For I take the doctrine of passive obedience,'* 
etc., among the stafesmen, to be like the Oopernican 
system of the earth's motion among philosophers : which, 
though it be contrary to all ancient knowledge, and not 
capable of demonstration, yet is adhered to in general, 
because by this they can better solve, and give a more 
rational account of several dark phenomena in nature, 
than they could before." 

Bacon in " The Consolidator" was religiously, we think, 
as he was politically in " The Jure Divino" and in " The 
Original Power of the Oollective Body of the People of 
England Examined and Asserted," living a second life on 
second head. In " The Jure Divino" the folly as to the 
divine right of kings is indeed most graphically made 
manifest ; and in '' The Oonsolidator" all things are being 
subtly worked through confusion to his youthful Puritan 



' From p. 37 of Gulli veer's Travels we quote as follows : " In the 
year 1727 Gulliver's Travels appeared, and were hailed with a mix- 
ture of merriment and amazement, which at once stamped their 
popularity. Some contemporary critics accused him of havincj 
imitated Defoe ; and the charge has been often repeated. No doubt, 
there are many striking points of resemblance between the two great 
fictions of these authors, especially tlie air of truth which the recital 
of minute and apparently striking circumstances gives to their nar- 
ratives ; but while Defoe strictly confines himself to romantic ad- 
venture, Swift takes the higher aim of philosophic satire, and seems 
to consider the incidents of his story as secondary considerations." 

^ As to " passive obedience" we, from Addison, vol. iv., p. 391, quote 
as follows : " Passive obedience and non-resistance are the duties of 
Turks and Indians, who have no laws above the will of a Grand 
Signior or a Mogul, The same power which those princes enjoy in 
their respective governments, belongs to the legislative body in our 
constitution ; and that for the same reason ; because no body of 
men is subject to laws, or can be controlled by them, who have the 
authority of making, altering, or repealing whatever laws they shall 
think fit, "Were our legislature vested in the person of our prince, 
he might, doubtless, wind and turn our constitution at his pleasure : 
he might shape our government to his fancy. In a word, he might 
oppress, persecute, or destroy, and no man say to him. What dost 
thou ?" All of these writers were, in other words, Bacon was a 
great theologian. See Macaulay's statement, p. 185. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 545 

views.' In our statement as to the masks, see what Bacon 
says touching the methods of Democritus in bringing 
forth truth out of confusion. 

What Bacon himself came to think touching the aban- 
donment of his defence may be seen in " The Jure Di- 
vino," from which we quote as follows : 

" But man gives man no latitude or law. 
But reigns by laws that nature never saw ; 
If the exalted tyrant claims his right, 
The passive slave must patiently submit ; 
His wife, life, land, his sword and gun resign, 
And neither must resist, nor may repine ; 
If to be murder'd, must to fate give way. 
And if to hang his passive self : obey. 

" But O ! the Christian legion thus behaves 
Why then the Christian legion must be knaves ; 
Knaves to themselves and to their own defence, 
And might have lived and fought in innocence ; 
Ought to have lived and fought, and ought to bCj 
Punish'd for yielding to unjust authority ; 
He that his own most just defence declines, 
Felo de se, against himself combines : 
For life's a debt, which no man can deny, 
'Tis due to nature and posterity : 
'Tis lent us to improve and propagate, 
And no man may anticipate his fate : 
But he betrays the high orig'nal trust. 
Is to himself and family unjust ; 
A traitor to the laws of common sense, 
And contradicts the ends of Providence ; 
Rebels against his reason and defies 
The rules of life, and puts out nature's eyes."* 

These thoughts and the '' Serious Reflections" of Robin- 
son Crusoe have been supposed to apply to Defoe's neg- 
lect to defend himself upon being charged with the author- 
ship of that admirable paper entitled *' The Shortest Way 
with the Dissenters." If he was the author had he not 
faith in his work ? and what defence had he ? 

But again, same page : 

" Nature's just argument from this is plain, 
That if he must the gift of life maintain ; 
With equal care he's bound to the defence, 
From foreinrn or domestic violence : 



^ Promus, 351. (Let me back to my former life.) 
» See Sonnet 88 and 113, pp. 281 and 285. 

18 



546 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

It can't be just that heaven should e'er intend. 
We should ourselves against ourselves defend : 
And then to let another hand procure, 
The mischiefs we're forbidden to endure : 
This consequence forever will be true, 
He must not suffer what he must not do ; 
And 'tis as nat'ral still, and full as just, ^ 
That what we must not bear we may resist." * 

(Jure Divino, p. 18, Hazlitt's Defoe, vol. iii.) 
And same article, at page 27, we have : 

" The laws of nature dictate to the sense. 
That all men claim the right to self-defence ; 
And they that swear a larger debt to pay. 
Insult their Maker when they thus obey ; 
Depose the rightful rule of Providence, 
Confound their reason, and dissolve their sense : 
Subject the human nature unto rules, 
Not fit to govern any brutes but fools ; 
From this just cause it always comes to pass, 
Let the fool man be ne'er so much an ass ; 
The laws of nature ne'er so much suppress'd, 
And the blind wretch be ne'er so much a jest : 
The just dominion of eternal right, 
Dissolves the mist at last, and clears the sight ; 
Does all the sense of injury restore. 
And brings things back to where they were before ; 
The thin vain vapour which eclipsed his eyes, 
Dissolves of course, and reason naked lies : 
His judgment to its exercise retires, 
And reason all the exhalation fires ; 
The man enjoys himself,"^ and sees by rule, 
That all his life before he's been a fool. 

" From this new life his reason dates her reign. 
And after this all new attempts are vain ; 
His native liberty he will pursue, 
The fetters of his tangled sense undo ; 

^ In the Addison article on passive obedience, in a note just re- 
ferred to, we have : " But to say that we have rights which 
we ought not to vindicate and assert ; that liberty and property are 
the birthright of the English nation, but that if a prince invades 
them by violent and illegal methods, we may upon no pretence 
resist, but remain altogether passive ; nay, that in such a case we 
must all lose our lives unjustly, rather than defend them ; this, I 
say, is to confound governments, and to join things together that 
are wholly repugnant in their natures ; since it is plain, that such a 
plain subjection, such an unconditional obedience, can be only dvie 
to an arbitrary prince, or to a legislative body." 

^ As to the expression " enjoys himself," see p. 348, note 6. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 547 

Dissolve the hated bonds of slavery, 
And let his body as his mind be free." 

In order to draw tlie mind now in the desired direction, 
we return to '* The Consolidator," and from p. 245 quote 
thus : *' It is not worth while to tell you this man's lunar 
name, or whether he had a name or no ; it is plain it was 
a man in the moon ; but all the conference I had with 
him was very strange." ^ 

And on p. 247 we have : 

" From the observation of these glasses, we also drew 
some puns, crotchets, and conclusions. 

*' First. That the wl^ole world has a blind side, a dark 
side, and a bright side, and consequently so has every- 
body in it. 

*' Secondly. That the dark side of affairs to-day, may 
be the bright side to-morrow ; from whence abundance 
of useful morals were also raised ; such as, — 

*' 1. Xo man's fate is so dark, but when the sun shines 
upon it, it will return its rays and shine for itself. 

" 2. All tilings turn like the moon, up to-day, down 
to-morrow, full and change, flux and reflux. 

" 3. Human understanding is like the moon at the 
first quarter, half dark.'^ 

*' Thirdly. The changing sides ought not to be 
thought so strange, or so much condemned by mankind, 
having its original from the lunar influence, and governed 
by the powerful operation of heavenly motion. 

" Fourthly. If there be any such thing as destiny in 
the world, I know nothing man is so predestinated to, as 
to be eternally turning round ; and but that I purpose to 
entertain the reader with at least a whole chapter or sec- 
tion of the philosophy of human motion, spherically and 
hypercritically examined and calculated, I should enlarge 
upon that thought in this place. 

*' Having thus jumped^ in our opinions, and perfectly 

» See Sonnet 107, p. 104. 

' Bacon in connection with his idols of the tribe, of the den, of 
the market, of the theatre, says : " For the mind, darkened by its 
covering the body, is far from being a flat, equal, and clear mirror 
that receives and reflects the rays without mixture, but rather a 
magical glass, full of superstitions and apparitions." (De Aug- 
mentis, Book 5, ch. 4, Bohn ed., p. 207.) 

^ In the plays we have the expressions " jump the life to come," 



548 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

satisfied ourselves with demonstration that these worlds 
were sisters, both in form, function, and all theiiicapacitics ; 
in short, a pair of moons, and a pair of worlds, equally 
magnetical, sympathetical, and influential ; we set up our 
rest as to that affair, and went forward." 

In the so-called Shakespeare plays, and particularly in 
the play of The Tempest, in a Midsummer-Night's 
Dream, ^ and in Love's Labour's Lost let the reader note 
the expressions where the " moon" and " the man in the 
moon" are made use of ; also in the foregoing lines con- 
cerning the South Sea ; also Sonnet 107, where it is said 
*' The Mortal Moon hath her eclipse endured." And 
The Anatomy of Melancholy opens in these words : 

^^ Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive 
to know what an tick or personate actor this is, that so 
insolently intrudes, upon this common theatre, to the 
world's view, arrogating another man's name, whence he 
is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say. Although, 



" jump at this dead hour," " our inventions meet and jump in one," 
etc. As to the advancement of ofiicials Bacon says : " In this three 
points are to be observed ; first, that the promotion be by steps, and 
not by jumps ; secondly, that they be accustomed to an occasional 
disappointment ; and thirdly, as Machiavelli well advises, that they 
should have ever before their eyes some ulterior object of ambition." 
(Phil. Works, vol. v.. p. 47.) In The Pilgrim's Progress we have 
the expressions " I had always the luck to jump in my judgment 
with the present M'ay of the times" and " yet if he jumps not with 
them in all things," etc., pp. 174 and 175. 

^ The play of A Midsummer-Night's Dream is indeed a most subtle 
piece of work. Concerning it see our quotation from Bacon as to 
liobin Goodfellow ; in other words, Bacon's friend, Faulk Gravil, at 
p. 460, note 1. And from Act ii., sc. 1, p. 283, of the play we quote 
as follows : 

" Fai. Either I mistake your shapeand making quite. 
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, 
Call'd Robin Goodfellow : are you not he. 
That frights the maidens of the villagery ; 
Skims milk ; and sometimes labours in the quern, 
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn ; 
And sometime makes the drink to bear no barm ; 
Misleads niglit-wanderers, laughing at their harm ?" 

Was not this play written while Bacon was seeking the Solicitor's 
place, mentioned in earlier pages ? As to Theseus, the Duke, its 
leading character, see Bacon's Phil. Works, vol. iii., pp. 334 and 
335. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 549 

as he said, Primum, si nohiero, non respooideho : qiois 
coacturus est? (I am a free man born, and may choose 
whether I will tell : who can compel me ?) if I be urged, I 
will as readily reply as that Egyptian in Plutarch, when a 
curious fellow would needs know what he had in his 
basket, Quum vicles velatcmi, quid inquiris iii rem abscon- 
ditamf It was therefore covered, because he should not 
know what was in it.^ Seek not after that which is hid : 
if the contents please thee, and be for thy use, supjjose the 
man in the moon, or ivliom thou loilt, to be the author : I 
would not williugly be known." '^ 

"\Ye next invite the attention of the reader to Swift's 
" Tale of a Tub," dedicated to Prince Posterity, aiid 
from the bookseller's dedication, p. 24, quote thus :^ 

" My Lord : Although the author has written a large 
dedication, yet that being addressed to a prince, whom I 
am never likely to have the honour of being known to ; a 
person besides, as far as I can observe, not at all regarded, 
or thought on by any of our present writers ; and being 
wholly free from that slavery which booksellers usually lie 
under, to the caprice of authors, I think it a wise piece of 
presumption to inscribe these papers to your lordship and 
to implore your lordship's protection of them. God and 
your lordship know their faults and their merits ; for, as 
to my own particular,^ I am altogether a stranger to the 
matter ; and though everybody else should be equally 
ignorant, I do not fear the sale of the book, at all the 
worse, upon that score." 

Prom " The Bookseller to the Eeader," p. 28, we quote 
in full, thus : 

" It is now six years since these papers came first to my 
hand, which seems to have been about a twelvemonth after 
they were written ; for the author tells us in his preface 
to the first treatise, that he has calculated it for the year 
1697, and in several passages of that discourse, as well as 
the second, it appears they were written about that time. 

" As to the author, I can give no manner of satisfaction ; 

' Will the reader please see our quotation from Addison at p. 458. 

^ Promus, 852. I had rather know than be known. 

2 The matter introductory to this work we regard as products pre- 
pared by Bacon's own subtle pen. 

^ Here we again have Bacon's distinctive and unusual expression 
" my own particular." See p. 399, note 7. 



550 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

however I am credibly informed, that this publication is 
without his knowledge ; for he concludes the copy is lost, 
having lent it to a person, since dead, and being never in 
possession of it after : so that, whether the work received 
his last hand, or whether he intended to fill up the defec- 
tive places, is likely to remain a secret.^ 

*' If I should go about'^ to tell the reader, by what acci- 
dent I became master of^ these papers, it would, in this 
unbelieving age, pass for little more than the cant or jar- 
gon of the trade. I therefore gladly spare both him and 
myself so unnecessary a trouble. There yet remains a 
difficult question, why 1 published them no sooner. 1 
forebore upon two accounts ; first, because I thought I 
had better work upon my own hands ; and secondly, be- 
cause I was not without some hope of hearing from the 
author, and receiving his directions. But I have been 
lately alarmed with intelligence of a surreptitious copy, 
which a certain great wit had now polished and refined, 
or, as our present writers express themselves, fitted to the 
humour of the ajre ; as they have already done, with great 
felicity to, Don Quixote, Boccalini, La Bruyere, and other 
authors. However, I thought it fairer dealing to offer the 

^ These places are what are called chasms in the manuscript. See 
Addison's useof this word " chasm," vol. iv., p. 109, And as to the 
expression " chasms of thought," see vol. iii. of his works, p. 491. 
See also De Augmentis, Book 2, ch. 7. 

2 To Bacon's use of tlie words " go about" we have alreadv called 
attention and given examples at p. 32. And from the Merchant of 
Venice, Act ii., sc. 9, p. 67, we give the following : 

" And vrell said too ; for who shall go about 
To cozen fortune, and be honourable 
Without the stamp of merit !" 

2 We have likewise called attention to Bacon's use of the word 
"master" in tlie expressions " tlie stomach is the master of the 
house," " opinion is the master wheel," etc. He also used the ex- 
pressions " master of " and " more wit than 1 am master of," etc. 
And in Addison, vol. iv., p. 170, we have : " Each of which sub jects 
requires more time to examine than I am at present master of," 
And from Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, p. 169, we have : " I one 
day took the freedom to tell liis majest3^ that the contempt he dis- 
covered towards Europe, and the rest of tlie w^orld, did not seem 
answerable to those excellent qualities of mind that he wns master 
of," etc. And in the Serious Reflections of Crusoe, p, 19, we have : 
" No man is answerable either to God or man for that which he 
never was master of." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 551 

whole work in its naturals. If any gentleman will please 
to furnish me with a key, in order to explain the more 
difficult parts, I shall very gratefully acknowledge the 
favour, and print it by itself." 

The preface to the work, p. 35, begins thus : 
*' The wits of the present age being so very numerous 
and penetrating, it seems the grandees of church and state 
begin to fall under horrible apprehensions, lest these gen- 
tlemen, during the intervals of a long peace, should find, 
leisure to pick holes in the sides of religion and govern- 
ment,^ to prevent which, there has been much thought 
employed of late, upon certain projects for taking olf the 
force and edge of those formidable inquirers, from can- 
vassing and reasoning upon such delicate points. They 
have at length fixed upon one, which will require some 
time as well as cost to perfect. Meanwhile, the danger 
hourly increasing, by new levies of wits, all appointed (as 
there is reason to fear) with pen, ink, and paper, which 
may, at an hour's warning, be drawn out into pamphlets, 
and other offensive weapons, ready for immediate execu- 
tion, it w^as judged of absolute necessity, that some present 
expedient be thought on, till the main design can be 
brought to maturity. To this end, at a grand committee 
some days ago, this important discovery was made by a 
certain curious and refined observer -that seamen have a 
custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an 
empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying 
violent hands upon the ship.^ This parable was immedi- 
ately mythologized ; the whale was interpreted to be 
Hobbe's Leviathan, which tosses and plays with all 
schemes of religion and government, whereof a great many 

^ In The Pilgrim's Progress, p. 233, we have : " They then began 
to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly, and 
that devilishly, that they may have a seeming color to throw religion 
(for the sake of some infirmities they have espied in them) behind 
their backs." See Bacon's Letters, vol. vii., pp. 24 and 25. In 
another place Bacon says : " Certain feeble and' pale lamps are not 
to be carried round to the several corners and holes of errors and 
falsehood." (Works, vol. ii., p. 548.) 

2 In Addison, vol. iii., p. 172, we have: "The air-pump, the 
barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out 
to those busy spirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may 
let the ship sail on without disturbance, while he diverts himself 
with those innocent amusements." Lit this article be read. 



552 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

are hollow, and dry, and empty, and noisy, and wooden, 
and given to rotation : this is the leviathan, whence tho 
terrible wits of onr age are said to borrow their weapons. 
The ship in danger is easily understood to be its old anti- 
type, the commonwealth. But how to analyze the tub, 
was a matter of diflicnlty ; when, after long inquiry and 
debate, the literal meaning was preserved ; and it was 
decreed that, in order to prevent these leviathans from 
tossing and sporting with the commonwealth, which of 
itself is too apt to Huctuate, they should be diverted from 
that game by a Tale of a Tub.' And, my genius being con- 
ceived to lie not unhappily that way, I had the honour done 
me to be engaged in the performance. 

" This is the sole design in publishing the following 
treatise, which I hope will serve for an interwi of some 
months to employ these unquiet spirits, till the perfecting 
of that great work ; into the secret of which, it is reason- 
able the courteous reader should have some little light." 

Our noted Baconian word '^ weed," see p. 102, should 
now be called into relation with this work at p. 40, where 
we have : 

*^ Besides, most of our late satirists seem to lie under a 
sort of mistake ; that because nettles have the prerogative 
to sting,'' therefore all other weeds must do so too. I make 
not this comparison out of the least design to detract from 
these worthy writers ; for it is well known among mythol- 
ogists, that weeds have the pre-eminence over all other 
vegetables ;^ and therefore the first monarch of this island, 
whose taste and judgment were so acute and refined, did 
very wisely root out the roses from the collar of the order, 
and plant the thistles"* in their stead, as the nobler flower 

' Promns, 769. (The life of a tub [like that of Diogenes] : of 
those who live penuriously and 'far from the madding crowd.') 
In earlier pages we have mentioned Bacon's allusion to his Gorliam- 
bury residence as his Tub, pp. 224 and 411. See, please, in this con- 
nection the Addison article on the " tub," vol. ii., pp. 415-19. 

^ See p. 301 what Bacon sa.ys as to the stinging of the nettle. 

^ Touching mythology as to vegetables, see our quotation from 
Addison, p. 71. 

•* As to the " thistle" and some device connected with it, we quote 
Bacon as follows : " His Lordi^hip proceeded and said, this question 
was new to us, but ancient to them ; assuring us that the King did 
not bear in vain the device of the Thistle, wiih the word, li'emo me 
lacessit impuue ; and that as the multiplying of his kingdoms makcth 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTn. 553 

of the two. For which reason it is conjectured by pro- 
founder antiquaries, that the satirical itch/ so prevalent 
in this part of our island, was first brought among us from 
beyond the Tweed. Here may it long flourish and abound : 
may it survive and neglect the scorn of the world, with 
as much ease and contempt as the world is insensible to 
the lashes of it." 

This preface ends thus : " Yet I shall now dismiss our 
impatient reader from any further attendance at the 
porch,'' and, having duly prepared his mind by a prelimi- 
nary discourse, shall gladly introduce him to the sublime 
mysteries that ensue." 

The article itself consists of Alternating Sections in which 
the history of the Church following the reign of Henry the 
Eighth is allegorically presented, this subject alternating 
with sections upon literature and critics, and wherein is 
distinguished the true ancient critic. In the author's 
apology for the work, p. 10, we have : " The greater part 
of that book was finished about thirteen years since, 1G96, 
which is eight years before it was published. The author 
was then young, his invention at the height, and his read- 
ing fresh in his head. By the assistance of some think- 
ing, and much conversation, he had endeavored to strip 
himself of as many real prejudices as he could ; I say real 
ones, because under the notion of prejudices, he knew to 
what dangerous heights^ some men have proceeded. Thus 
prepared, he thought the numerous and gross corrujotions 

him feel his own power, so the multiplying of our loves and affec- 
tions made him to feel our griefs." (Bacon's Letters, vol, iii., p. 
860.) See " thistle," p. 527, note 1. 

^ Promus, 486. Itch and ease can no man please. In Coriolanus, 
Act i., sc. 1, p. 159, we have : 

" Afar. Thanks. — What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, 
That, rubbing the poor itch of .your opinion, 
Make yourselves scabs ?" 

Addison, vol. iv., p. 132, says : " Juvenal, in the motto of my paper, 
terms it a cacoethes, which is a hard word for a disease, called in 
plain English, the itch of writing." In Defoe we have: "0! if 
such Justice could be obtained in these Parts of the World, Mr. 
Applebee, how effectually would it cure that Itch of Scandal, that so 
universally overruns the Nation !" See Lee, vol. iii., p. 122. 

- This use of the word " porch" may be found in many places in 
Bacon's writings. And see this work, 'p. 461, note 1. 

^ This expression, "dangerous heights," is quite common with 
Bacon. 



554 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

in religion and learning might famish matter for a satire' 
that would be useful and diverting. He resolved to pro- 
ceed in a manner that should be altogether new, the world 
having been already too long nauseated with endless repe- 
titions upon every subject. The abuses in religion, he 
proposed to set forth in the allegory of the coats and the 
three brothers, which was to make up the body of the dis- 
course : those in learning he chose to introduce by way of 
digressions." 

Three platforms, or wooden machines, for the display of 
intelligence are mentioned, to wit : the pulpit, the ladder 
— that is, the rostrum— and the stage. The author after 
describing the first two says of the last : " The last engine 
of orators is the stage itinerant, erected with much sagac- 
ity, suh Jove pluvio, in triviis et quadriviis. It is the 
great seminary of the two former, and its orators are some- 
times preferred to the one, and sometimes to the other, in 
proportion to their deservings ; there being a strict and 
perpetual intercourse between all three. ^ 

" From this accurate deduction it is manifest, that for 
obtaining attention in public there is of necessity required 
a superior position of place. But, although this point be 
generally granted, yet the cause is little agreed in ; and it 
seems to me that very few philosophers have fallen into a 
true, natural solution of this phenomenon. The deepest 
account, and the most fairly digested of any I have yet 
met with, is this ; that air being a heavy body, and there- 
fore, according to the system of Epicurus, continually de- 
scending, must needs be more so when loaded and pressed 
down by words ; which are also bodies of much weight 
and gravity, as it is manifest from those deep impressions 

^ See cli. 2 of Book 7 of the De Augraentis, and where Bacon, 
touching a deficiency of learning as to satire, says : " Bat this part, 
touching respective cautions and vices, we set down as deficient, 
and will call it by the name of ' Serious Satire,' or the Treatise of the 
Inner Nature of Things." See our quotations at pp. 68 and 69. 
Promus, 457. {That man \is delighted] with satires written in the 
manner of Bion, and with biting loit, or sarcasm.) From Defoe's 
Consolidator, p. 226, we have : " Strange things they tell us, have 
been done with this calcined womb of imagination ; if the body it 
came from was a lyric poet, the child will be a beau, or a beauty ; 
if an heroic poet, he will be a bully ; if his talent was satire, he 
will be a philosopher." As to the word " womb," see pp. 142 and 578. 

2 Please see the Defoe statement concerning the stage at pp. 36 
and 68. 



THEEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 555 

they make and leave upon us ; and therefore must be de- 
livered from a due altitude, or else they will neither carry 
a good aim, nor fall down with a sufficient force." 
(Swift, p. 48.) 

On p. 49 we have : 

" I confess there is something yet more refined, in the 
contrivance and structure of our modern theatres. For, 
first, the pit is sunk below the stage, with due regard to 
the instruction above deduced ; that, whatever weighty 
matter shall be delivered thence, whether it be lead or gold, 
may fall plump into the jaws of certain critics, as I think 
they are called, which stand ready opened to devour them. 
Then, the boxes are built round, and raised to a level with 
the scene, in deference to the ladies ; because, that large 
portion of wit, laid out in raising pruriences and protu- 
berances, is observed to run much upon a line, and ever in 
a circle. The whining passions, and little starved conceits, 
are gently wafted up by their own extreme levity, to the 
middle region,^ and there fix and are frozen by the frigid 
understandings of the inhabitants. Bombastry and buf- 
foonery, by nature lofty and light, soar highest of all, 
and would be lost in the roof, if the prudent architect had 
not, with much foresight, contrived for them a fourth 
place, called the twelve-penny gallery, and there planted a 
suitable colony, who greedily intercept them in their pas- 



" Now this physico-logical scheme of oratorical recepta- 
cles or machines contains a great mystery ; being a type, 
a sign, an emblem, a shadow, a symbol, bearing anal- 
ogy to the spacious commonwealth of writers, and to those 
methods by which they must exalt themselves to a certain 
eminency above the inferior world." 

And on pp. 50-52 we have : 

" Under the stage itinerant are couched those produc- 
tions designed for the pleasure and delight of mortal man ; 
such as, Six-penny-worth of Wit, Westminster Drolleries, 
Delightful Tales, Complete Jesters, and the like ; by 

^ Here .again, we have Bacon's distinctively used expression " mid- 
dle region." Please see p. 43, and particularly note 2. See also pp. 
24, 56, 162, 231, 381, and 388. 

^ And so this literature w-as designed to meet all wants of the 
lower, middle, and upper classes. " For I have taken all knowledge 
to be my providence," says Bacon, See p. 453. 



556 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH, 

wliicli the writers of and for Gruh street^ have in these 
hitter ages so nobly triumphed over Time ; have clipped his 
wings, pared his nails, filed his teeth, turned back his 
hour-glass, blunted his scythe, and drawn the hobnails out 
of his shoes. ^ It is under this class 1 have presumed to list 
my present treatise, being just come from having the honour 
conferred upon me to be adopted a member of that illus- 
trious fraternity. 

'* Now, I am not unaware how the productions of the 
Grub-street brotherhood have of hite years fallen under 
many prejudices, nor how it has been the perpetual employ- 
ment of two junior start-up societies to ridicule them and 
their authors, as unworthy their established post in the 
commonwealth of wit and learning. Their own con- 
sciences will easily inform them whom I mean ; nor has 
the world been so negligent a looker-on as not to observe 
the continual efforts made by the societies of Gresham and 
of Will's to edify a name and reputation upon the ruin of 
OURS. And this is yet a more feeling grief to us, upon 
the regards of tenderness as well as of justice, when we 
reflect on their proceedings not only as unjust, but as un- 
grateful, undutiful, and unnatural. For how can it be for- 
got by the world or themselves, to say nothing of our own 
records, which are full and clear in the point, that they 
both are seminaries not only of our planting, but our water- 
ing too ? I am informed, our two rivals have lately made 
an oft'er to enter into the lists^ with united forces, and chal- 

^ The reader must not fail to read iu this connection the telling 
article concerning Lord Bacon and Grub Street, found in Addison, 
vol. ii., pp. 172-75. We give a paragraph. " This consideration 
very much comforts me, wlien I think of those numberless vermin 
that feed upon this paper, and find tlieir substance out of if ; I mean 
the small wits and scribblers that every day turn a penny by nib- 
bling at my lucubrations. This has been so advantageous to this 
little species of writers, that, if they do me justice, I may expect to 
have my statue erected in Grub Street, as being a common bene- 
factor to that quarter." Note in the article the expression " Dr. 
B— s's dropping his cloak" and the expression "under the title of 
Atlantis." Read this article and the one following it in connection 
with Sonnets 53, 67, 68 and 78. 

"^ Note, again, the emphasis placed upon the subject of time in all 
of these writings, and particularly in the sonnets, 

^ Observe the use of this word " lists" in the pla3"s. Bacon says : 
" If, however, we have departed from the ancient and received 
opinions, and arrayed opponents against us, we have not alTected 
contradiction, and therefore will not enter into the lists of conten- 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 557 

lenge ns to a comparison of books, both as to weight and 
number. In return to which, with license from our presi- 
dent, I humbly offer two answers ; first, we say, the propo- 
sal is like that which Arcbimedes made upon a smaller 
affair, including an impossibility in the practice ; for where 
can they find scales of capacity enough for the first ; or an 
arithmetician of capacity enough for the second ? Secondly, 
we are ready to accept the challenge ; but with this condi- 
tion, that a third indifferent person be assigned, to whose 
impartial judgment it should be left to decide whicb society 
each book, treatise, or pamphlet do most properly belong to. 
This point, God knows, is very far from being fixed at pres- 
ent ; for we are ready to produce a catalogue of some 
thousands, which in all common justice ought to be entitled 
to our fraternity, but by the revolted and new-fangled 
writers, most perfidiously ascribed to the others." 

And on pp. 52 and 53 we have : 

" But the greatest maim given to that general reception 
which the writings of our society have formerly received 
(next to the transitory state of all sublunary things) has 
been a superficial vein among many readers of the present 
age, who will by no means be persuaded to inspect beyond 
the surface and the rind of things ; whereas, wisdom is a 
fox, who, after long hunting will at last cost you the pains 
to dig out ; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, 
has the thicker, the homelier, and the coarser coat ; and 
whereof, to the judicious palate, the maggots' are the best : 
it is a sack-posset, wherein the deeper you go, you will find 
it the sweeter. Wisdom is alien, whose cackling we must 
value and consider, because it is attended with an egg f 
but then lastly, it is a nut,' which, unless you choose with 

tiou." (De Augmentis. cli. 6, Book 3, Bolin ed., p. 149.) And la 
Pericles, Act i., sc. 1, p. 289, we have : 

" Per. Like a bold champion, I assume the lists. 
Nor ask advice of any other thought 
But faithfulness, and courage." 

1 See this use of the literary " maggot" by Defoe, p. 451. 

"^ As to tlie hen, see The Pilgrim's Progress, pp. 286 and 287. 

3 In The Pilgrim's Progress, pp. 356 and 357, we have : " While 
they were thus talking, they were presented with another dish, and 
it was a dish of nuts. (Song 6 : 11.) Then said some at the table, 
Nuts spoil tender teeth, especially the teeth of children. Which, 
when Gains heard he said : 



558 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. ' 

judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with noth- 
ing but a worm. In consequence of these momentous 
truths, the gruba3an sages have always chosen to convey 
their precepts and their arts shut up within the vehicles of 
types and fables ; which having been perhaps more careful 
and curious in adorning than was altogether necessary, it 
has fared with these vehicles, after the usual fate of coaches 
over-finely painted and gilt, that the transitory gazers have 
so dazzled their eyes and filled their imaginations with the 
outward lustre, as neither to regard nor consider the person 
or the parts of the owner within. A misfortune we un- 
dergo with somewhat less reluctancy, because it has been 
common to us with Pythagoras, ^sop, Socrates, and other 
of our predecessors." ^ Please see the balance of this 
section. 

As we have seen. Bacon marked out for himself the work 
of weeding the Church from Henry the Eighth's con- 
fusion. And so the alternating or second section of this 
article opens with elements concerning the Church and its 
errors and divisions. This is represented by three broth- 
ers trying to conform to their father's will, at the same 
time reasoning away its provisions when in conflict with 
their desires. 

They are represented the product of one birth, the 
midwife being unable to tell with certainty which was the 
eldest. Peter is supposed to represent the Eoman Church, 
Martin, to represent the views held by Martin Luther, and 
Jack those held by John Calvin. The property conferred 
by the will was new coats for each, which with good wear- 

" ' Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them cheaters), 
Wliose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters : 
Open the shells, and you shall have the meat ; 
They here are brought for you to crack and eat.' " 

^ Bacon says : " And hence the ancient times are full of all kinds 
of fables, parables, enigmas, and similitudes ; as may appear by the 
numbers of Pythagoras, the enigmas of the Sphinx, the fables of 
^sop, and the hke. The Apophthegms too of the ancient sages 
commonly explained the matter by similitudes. Thus Menenius 
Agrippa among the Romans (a nation at tliat time by no means 
learned) quelled a sedition by a fable. In a word, as hieroglyphics 
were before letters, so parables were before arguments. And even 
now, and at all times, the force of parables is and has been excel- 
lent ; because arguments cannot be made Sq perspicuous nor true 
examples so apt." (De Augmentis, ch. 18, Book 2.) 8ee pp. 224 and 
459, and see the Addison article on fables, p. 70. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 559 

ing, it was said, would last fresh and sound as long as they 
lived, and that they would grow with their bodies. The 
will gave instructions how to wear them. For seven years 
they are said to have kept their coats in good order and to 
have travelled through countries where they encountered 
giants and slew dragons. Thus they continued until they 
*' arrived at the proper age for producing themselves," when 
they came up to the town and fell in love with the ladies, 
and especially three, which in a foot-note are said to be 
covetousness, ambition, and pride. These were in chief 
reputation. They were at the top of the fashion at court 
and favored the new sect, concerning wliich it is, at pp. 
59-63, said :' 

*' For about this time it happened a sect arose whose 
tenets obtained and spread very far, especially at the grand 
monde, and among every body of good fashion. They 
worshipped a sort of idol, who, as their doctrine delivered, 
did daily create men by a kind of manufactory operation. 
This idol they placed in the highest part of the house, on 
an altar erected about three foot ; he was shown in the 
posture of a Persian^ emperor, sitting on a superficies, with 
his legs interwoven under him. This god had a goose for 
his ensign ; whence it is that some learned men pretend to 
deduce his original from Jupiter Capitolinus. At his left 
hand, beneath the altar, hell seemed to open and catch at 
the animals the idol was creating ; to prevent which, cer- 
tain of his priests hourly flung in pieces of the uninformed 
mass, or substance, and sometimes whole limbs already 
enlivened, which that horrid gulf insatiably swallowed, 
terrible to behold. The goose' was also held a subaltern 

' This may be intended to represent a time prior to the establish- 
ment of the doctrine of the Roman supremacy in the Church. 

2 See p. 48 and p. 90, note 3. 

^ As to this " goose" or goddess, we from Love's Labour's Lost, 
Act iv., sc. 3, p. 418, quote as follows : 

" Bir. [Aside.'\ O ! rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose : 
Disfigure not his slop. 

Lon. This same shall go. — 

\^Reads.^ ' Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 
'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, 
Persuade my heart to this false perjury ? 
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. 
A woman I forswore ; but I will prove. 
Thou being a goddess. I forswore not thee : 



5G0 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

divinity or deus mi7i07'um gentium, before whose shrine 
was sacrificed that creature whose hourly food is human 
gore, and who is in so great renown abroad for being the 
deb'ght and favorite of the ^Egyptian Cercopithecus. 
Milbons of these animals were cruelly slaughtered every day 
to appease the hunger of that consuming deity. The chief 
idol was also worshijoped as the inventor of the yard and 
needle ; whether as the god of seamen or on account of 
certain other mystical attributes, has not been sufficiently 
cleared. 

" The worshippers of this deity had also a system of 
their belief, v^rhich seemed to turn upon the following 
fundamentals. They held the universe to be a large suit 
of clothes, which invests everything ; that the earth is in- 
vested by the air ; the air is invested by the stars ; and 
the stars are invested by the primum moMle. Look on this 
globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and 
fashionable dress. What is that which some call land but 
a fine coat faced with green ? or the sea, but a waistcoat of 
water-tabby ? Proceed to the particular works of the 
creation, you will find how curious journeymen Nature 
has been to trim u]3 the vegetable beaux ; observe how 
sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a 
fine doublet of white satin is worn by the birch. To con- 
clude from all, what is man himself but a micro-coat or 
rather a complete suit of clothes with all its trimmings ?' 

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ; 
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. 
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is : 
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth doth shine, 
Exhal'st this vapour vow ; in thee it is : 
If broken, then, it is no fault of mine : 
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise, 
To lose an oath to win a paradise ?' 

Bir. yAside.'] This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity ; 
A green goose, a goddess : pure, pure idolatry. 
God amend us, God amend ! we are much out o' the way." 

' Bacon says : " Lastly, if a man still urge, that yet it cannot be 
denied but that on the surface of the earth itself and the parts next 
thereto there are innumerable changes ; in the heavens not so ; — I 
would answer, first that I do not mean that they are equal in every- 
thing ; and yet, secondly, that if we take the regions which they call 
the upper and middle region of the air for the surface or inner coat 
of the heavens, in the same manner as we take this region here in 
w hich animals, plants, and minerals are contained, for the surface or 



THREAD OF THE LABTRINTIT. 5G1 

As to his body there can be no dispute ; but examine even 
the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all con- 
tribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact 
dress : to instance no more ; is not religion a cloak, hon- 
esty and pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a sur- 
tout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, 
which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is 
easily slipped dow^n for the service of both ? 

'' These postulata being admitted, it will follow in due 
course of reasoning that those beings, which the world 
calls improperly suits of clothes, are in reality the most 
refined species of animals ; or, to proceed higlier,^ that 
they are rational creatures or men. For, is it not manifest 
that they live, and move, and talk, and perform all other 
offices of human life ? are not beauty, and wit, and mien, 
and breeding, their inseparable proprieties ? in short, we 
see nothing but them, hear nothing but them. Is it not 
they who walk the streets, fill up parliament-, coffee-, play-, 
bawdy-houses? It is true, indeed, that these animals, 
which are vulgarly called suits of clothes, or dresses, do, 
according to certain compositions, receive different appella- 
tions. If one of them be trimmed up with a gold chain, 
and a red gow^n, and white rod, and a great horse, it is 
called a lord-mayor : if certain ermines and fur be placed 
in a certain position, we style them a judge ; and so an 
apt conjunction of lawn and black.satin we entitle a bishop.' 

outer coat of the earth, we shall find there also various and multi- 
form generations and changes." See this subject, Phil. Works, 
vol. v., pp. 487-440. And further as to the word " coat" see vol. iii., 
pp 440 and 482. Much might be introduced touching the coats did 
space permit. Bacon says: "Behavior seemeth to me as a garment 
of the, mind, and to have the conditions of a garment." (Phil, 
Works, vol. iii., p. 447.) See p. 61, note 2. 

' " To proceed higher" is a Baconian expression. 
^ Look in the plays for these elements. VVas this, or was that which 
follows in the text, the Pythagorean system ? or is that which fol- 
lows the Baconian system. Touching the " coats," we from As You 
Like It, Act ii., sc. 7, p. 185, quote thus : 

" Jaq. O, worthy fool ! — One that hath been a courtier. 

And says, if ladies be but young and fair, 

They have the gift to know it ; and in his brain, 

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit 

After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd 

With observation, the which he vents 

In mangled forms. — O, that I were a fool ! 

I am ambitious for a motley coat. 



562 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

" Others of these professors, though agreeing in the 
main system, were yet more refined upon certain branches 
of it ; and held that man was an animal compounded of 
two dresses, the natural and celestial suit, which were the 
body and the soul : that the soul was the outward, and the 
body the inward clothing ; that the latter was ex traduce ; 
but the former of daily creation and circumfusion ; this 
last they proved by scripture, because in them we live, 
and move, and have our being ; as likewise by philosophy, 
because they are all in all, and all in every part. Besides, 
said they, separate these two and you will find the body 
to be only a senseless unsavory carcass ; by all which it is 
manifest that the outward dress must needs be the soul. 

'' To this system of religion were tagged several subaltern 
doctrines, which were entertained with great vogue : as 
particularly the faculties of the mind were deduced by the 
learned among them in this manner ; embroidery was 
sheer wit, gold fringe was agreeable conversation, gold 
lace was repartee, a huge long periwig was humour, and a 
coat full of powder was very good raillery — all which re- 
quired abundance of finesse and delicatesse to manage with 
advantage, as well as a strict observance after times and 
fashions. 

"I have, with much pains and reading, collected out 
of ancient authors this short summary of a body of philos- 
ophy and divinity, which seems to have been composed by 
a vein and race of thinking very different from any other 

Duke. Thou shalt have one. 

Jaq. It is my only suit ; 

Provided, that you weed your better judgments 
Of all opinion that grows rank in them, 
That I am wise. I must have libertv 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please ; for so fools have : 
And they that are most galled with my folly, 
They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so ? 
The why is plain as way to parish Church : 
He, that a fool doth very wisely hit, 
Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
Not to seem senseless of the bob ; if not, 
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd, 
Even by the squandering glances of the fool. 
Invest me in my motley ; give me leave 
To speak my mind, and I will through and through 
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world. 
If they will patiently receive my medicine." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 563 

systems either ancient or modern. And it was riot merely 
to entertain or satisfy the reader's curiosity, but rather to 
give him light into several circumstances of the following 
story ; that, knowing the state of dispositions and opinions 
in an age so remote, he may better comprehend those great 
events which were the issue of them. I advise, therefore, 
the courteous reader to peruse with a world of application, 
again and again, whatever I have written upon this mat- 
ter. And so leaving these broken ends, I carefully gather 
up the chief thread of my story and proceed. 

" These opinions, therefore, Avere so universal, as well 
as the practices of them, among the refined part of court 
and town, that our three brother adventurers, as their cir- 
cumstances then stood, were strangely at a loss. For, on 
the one side, the three ladies they addressed themselves 
to, whom we have named already, were ever at the very 
top of the fashion, and abhorred all that were below it but 
the breadth of a hair. On the other side, their father's 
will was very precise ; and it was the main precept in it, 
with the greatest penalties annexed, not to add to or 
diminish from their coats one thread, without a j^ositive 
command in the will. Now, the coats their father had 
left them were, it is true, of very good cloth, and besides so 
neatly sewn, you would swear they were all of a piece ; 
but at the same time very plain, and with little or no 
ornament : and it happened that before they were a month 
in town great shoulder-knots came up — straight all the 
world was shoulder- knots — no apj^roaching the ladies 
ruelles without the qiiota of shoulder-knots. That fellow, 
cries one, has no soul ; where is his shoulder-knot ?'" 

And on p. 68 it is said : " Kesolved, therefore, at all 
hazards, to comply with the modes of the world, they con- 
certed matters together, and agreed unanimously to lock 
up their father's will in a strong box, brought out of 
Greece or Italy, I have forgotten which, and trouble them- 
selves no further to examine it. but only refer to its 
authority whenever they thought fit." 

Section three again opens tlie subject of critics by dis- 
tinguishing them into three classes. The first of these 
are said to be such as have " invented or drawn up rules 
for themselves and the world, by observing which a caieful 

* See " slioiilder-kiiot," p. Gl, note 2. 



5G4 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

reader might be able to pronounce upon the productions 
of the learned, form his taste to a true relish of the sub- 
lime and the admirable, and divide every beauty of matter 
or of style from the corruption that apes it." 

Concerning the other two species we, pp. 70 and 71, quote 
thus : 

" Again, by the word critic have been meant the re- 
storers of ancient learning from the worms, and graves, 
and dust of manuscripts. 

'' Now the races of those two have been for some ages 
utterly extinct ; and besides, to discourse any further of 
them would not be at all to my purpose. 

' ' The third and noblest sort is that of the TRUE CRITIC, ' 
whose original is the most ancient of all. Every true crit- 
ic is a hero born, descended in a direct line from a celes- 
tial stem by Momus and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who 
begat Tigellius, who begat Etcsetera the elder ; who begat 
Bentley, and Rymer, and Wotton, and Perrault, and Den- 
nis ; who begat Etcastera the younger. 

" And these are the critics from whom the common- 
wealth of learning has in all ages received such immense 
benefits, that the gratitude of their admirers placed their 
origin in the Heaven, among those of Hercules, Theseus, 
Perseus, and other great deservers of mankind. But 
heroic virtue itself has not been exempt from obloquy of 
evil tongues. For it has been objected that those ancient 
heroes, famous for their combatting so many giants, and 
dragons, and robbers, were in their own persons a greater 
nuisance to mankind than any of those monsters they 
subdued ; and therefore, to render their obligations more 
complete, when all other vermin were destroyed, should, 
in conscience, have concluded with the same justice upon 
themselves. As Hercules most generously did, and upon 
that score procured to himself more temples and votaries 
than the best of his fellows.'^ For these reasons I sup- 
pose it is why some have conceived it would be very ex- 
pedient for the public good of learning that every true 

^ As to the true critic, see Addison, vol. iv., pp. 148-53 and 221-24. 
In the works of Addison, as we have said. Bacon sat as his own 
critic, whose chair is mentioned in ch. 4 of Book G of tlie De Aug- 
mentis. See p. 31, note 1, and pp. 188-192. 

2 As in the other parts, so in Swift, do we find this same ^ise of 
the word " fellows." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 565 

critic, as soou as he had finished' his task assigned, should 
immediately deliver himself up to rats bane, or hemp, or 
leap from some convenient altitude ; and that no man's 
pretensions to so illustrious a character should by any 
means be received before that operation were performed. 

" Now, from this heavenly descent of criticism, and the 
close analogy it bears to heroic virtue, it is easy to assign 
the proper employment of a true ancient genuine critic, 
which is, to travel through this vast world of writings ; 
to peruse and hunt those monstrous faults bred within 
them ; to drag out the lurking errors, like Cacus from his 
den ; to multiply them like Hydra's heads ; and rake 
them together like Augeas's dung : or else drive away a 
sort of dangerous fowl, who have a perverse inclination to 
plunder the best branches of the tree of knowledge, like 
those stymphalian birds that eat up the fruit." 

From pp. 75-77 will appear the necessities which have 
induced the true critic to assume a mask, cover, or weed in 
the performance of his work. That the words as covers 
may be the better cloak, offensive ones were anciently 
chosen, such as an " Ass," a " Serpent," etc.^ And on 
p. 76 it is said : " The usual exercise of these young 
students was to attend constantly at theatres, and learn to 
spy out the w^orst parts of the play, w^hereof they were 
obliged carefully to take note and render a rational ac- 

1 See p. 460, note 1. In Addison, vol. iv., p. 386, we have : " In 
a word, your high nonsense has a majestic appearance, and wears a 
most tremendous garb, lilie ^sop's ass clothed in a liou'sskin," 
And in the same article : " A man may as well hope to distinguish 
colours iu the midst of darkness, as to find out what to approve and 
disapprove in nonsense ; you may as w^ell assault an army that is 
buried in intrenchments. If it affirms anything, you cannot lay hold 
of it ; or if it denies, you cannot confute it. In a word, there are 
greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies aud perplexi- 
ties, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in 
the most abstruse and profound tract of school-divinity. "_ And, 
same article: "We meet with a low grovelling nonsense in every 
Grub-Street production; but I think there are none of our present 

writers who have hit the sublime in nonsense, besides Dr. S 1 in 

divinity, and the author of this letter in politics ; between whose 
characters in their respective professions, there seems to be a very 
nice resemblance." See same subject, Addison, vol. v., p. 318. 
Thus did Bacon bring forth desired ends in both religion and govern- 
ment, by pitting his characters, in a measure, one against another. 
He says: "But I undertake these things at the risk of others," 
p. 181. To lessen this risk he resorted to device. 



566 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

count to their tutors. Fleshed at these smaller sports, 
like young wolves, they grew up in time to be nimble and 
strong enough for hunting down large game. For it has 
been observed, both among ancients and moderns, that a 
true critic has one quality in common with a whore and 
an alderman, never to change his title or his nature ; that 
a gray critic has been certainly a green one, the perfec- 
tions and acquirements of his age being only the improved 
talent of his youth ; like hemp, which some naturalists 
inform us is bad for suffocations, though taken but in the 
seed." 

And on p. 77 we have : " Now, it is certain the institu- 
tion of the true critics was of absolute necessity to the 
commonwealth of learning. For all human actions seem 
to be divided, like Themistocles and his company ; one 
man can fiddle, and another can make a small town a 
great city ; and he that cannot do either one or the other 
deserves to be kicked out of the creation. The avoiding 
of which penalty has doubtless given the first birth to the 
nation of critics ; and withal, an occasion for their secret 
detractors to report that a true critic is a sort of mechanic, 
set up with a stock and tools for his trade at as little ex- 
pense as a tailor ; and that there is much analogy between 
the utensils and abilities of both : that the tailor's hell is 
the type of the critic's common-place book, and his wit 
and learning held forth by the goose ;^ that it requires at 
least as many of these to the making up of one scholar, as 
of the others to the composition of a man ; that the 
valour of both is equal, and their weapons nearly of a size." 

And the section ends in these words: "Thus much, 
I think, is sufficient to serve by way of address to my 
patrons, the true modern critics ; and may very well atone 
for my past silence, as well as that which I am likely to 
observe for the future. I hope I have deserved so well of 
their whole body as to meet with generous and tender 
usage at their hands. Supported by which expectation, 
I go on boldly to pursue those adventures already so hap- 
pily begun." 

' We thus see that the word " goose" is in this article used in a 
double sense : first, as api)lied to morals or religion ; and secondly, 
as to criticism, according as the sections of the article alternate 
from one subject to the other. The article has indeed great sub- 
tlety. See knot and thread, p. 315. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 567 

This article is said to have been composed in early 
years, but later was made to bend itself, as we shall claim, 
in the direction of Bacon's troubles, being a great satire 
upon James the First, upon himself, and his thwarted life 
aims. It is said to have been produced as we now find 
it when the author's original papers were out of his pos- 
session. The section on the " History of Martin" instead 
of falling within, is placed at the end of the article. This 
in earlier editions appeared under the title " What Fol- 
lows Section 9 in the Manuscript," but by Swift's direc- 
tion it is said to have been omitted. As its position is 
uncertain, we shall introduce at this juncture what we care 
to say of it before proceeding to Section 4. It in brief 
words traces the history of the Church from the reign of 
Henry the Eighth ; in other words, from the Reformation 
to the reign of Charles the First, with the position which 
each monarch — Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, 
Mary, Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First 
— took concerning Peter (the Papist), Martin (the Church 
of England), and Jack (Calvin or the Nonconformists'). 
In the reign -of James the First the fear of a union be- 
tween Peter and a branch of Jack's disciples, the delists, 
is said to have caused a breach in the author's methods,^ 
and so in this section on the History of Martin, p. 159, 
we have : " How the author finds himself embarrassed for 
having introduced into his history a new sect, difl:ering 
from the three he had undertaken to treat of, and how his 
inviolable res^Dect to the sacred number three obliges him 
to reduce these four, as he intends to do all other things, 
to that number, and for that end to drop the former 
Martin, and to substitute in his place lady Bess's iiistitu- 
tion, which is to pass under the name of Martin in the 
sequel to this true history." 

From the same page concerning Queen Bess, or Eliza- 
beth, and James the First we quote thus : " How lady 
Bess and her physicians, being told of many defects and 
imperfections in their new medley dispensatory, resolved 

^ In Defoe's " Consolidator" the methods of these parties will be 
found elaborated. As to the methods suggested to the Crolians or 
Nonconformists, see pp. 337-46 of the " ConsoUdator," and where 
the Gulluv^arian monarch is referred to. 

■^ The real end ahned at by Peter and a portion of Jack's followers 
is represented in the article as the same. 



508 TnREAD OF THE LABTRTNTIT. 

on a further alteration, and to purge it from a great deal 
of Peter's trasli that still remained in it, but were pre- 
vented by her death.' How she was succeeded by a North- 
country farmer, who pretended great skill in the man- 
aging of farms, though he could never govern his own 
poor little farm," nor yet this large new one after he got 
it.^ How this new landlord, to show his valour and dex- 
terity, fought against enchanters, weeds, giants, and wind- 
mills, and claimed great honour for his victories, though 
he ofttimes b — sh — t himself when there was no danger. 
How his successor, no wiser than he, occasioned great dis- 
orders by the new methods he took to manage his farms. 
How he attempted to establish, in his northern farm, the 
same dispensatory used in the southern, but miscarried 
because Jack's powders, pills, salves, and plasters" were 
there in great vogue." 

See this management set out in Defoe's " Consolidator. " 
To fully understand the situation of the shift as to 
parties, this " History of Martin" must be read. At this 
writing we have the impression, though not fully digested, 
that the dual character of The Tempest as to James 
and the screen Buckingham is here again attempted. 

' Bacon's desire to do this we have considered in connection with 
the play of Hamlet in earlier pages. 

2 This is an allusion to James' Scotch farm before he came to his 
English farm or throne. 

^ Touching this use of the word " farm" by Swift, we from De- 
foe's Jure Divino, Book 3. p. 17, quote as follows : 

" If kings may ravish, plunder, and destroy, 
Oppress the world, and all their wealth enjoy ; 
May harass nations, with their breath may kill, 
And limit human life by human will ; 
Then nations were for misery prepared, 
And God gave kings the world for their reward ; 
Kings were the general farmers of the land, 
Mankind their cattle, 

Made for their command ; 
Mere beasts of burden, couchant and supprest, 
Whom God, the mighty landlord, made in jest ; 
Deliver'd with possession of the farm, 
And he that quite destroys them does no harm ; 
They're only bound by tenor of the lease. 
To leave it peopled at their own decease." 

^ Here we again have Bacon's words " salve" or " plaster." See 
pp. 31, 114 and 327. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRII^TH. 569 

Bacon, as Martin, represents the Church, we think, and 
is trying to work out methods for it and for philosophy 
through these elements — to wit, through James and Buck- 
ingham. 

We turn now to Section 4, which opens thus : " I have 
now, with much pains and study, conducted the reader to 
a period where he must expect to hear of great revolu- 
tions. For no sooner had our learned brother, so often 
mentioned, got a warm house of his own over his head 
than he began to look big and to take mightily upon 
him ; insomuch that, unless the gentle reader, out of his 
great candour, will please a little to exalt his idea, I am 
afraid he will henceforth hardly know the hero of the 
play when he happens to meet him ; his part, his dress, 
and his mien being so much altered." 

On the next page, p. 80, we quote thus : " I hope, 
when this treatise of mine shall be translated into foreign 
languages (as I may without vanity affirm that the labour 
of collecting, the faithfulness in recounting, and the great 
usefulness of the matter to the public, will amply deserve 
that justice), that the worthy members of the several acad- 
emies abroad, especially those of France and Italy, will 
favorably accept these humble offers for the advancement 
of universal knowledge. I do also advertise the most rev- 
erend fathers, the Eastern missionaries, that I have, 
purely, for their sakes, made use of such words and 
phrases as will best admit an easy turn into any of the 
Oriental languages, especially the Chinese. And so I pro- 
ceed with great content of mind, upon reflecting how 
much emolument this whole globe of the earth is likely to 
reap by my labours." ^ 

Lord Peter, in order now to support a grandeur which 
he was not born to, turns projector, concerning the chief 
of which projects we from p. 80 quote as follows : " The 
first undertaking of lord Peter was to purchase a large 
continent, lately said to have been discovered in terra 
australis incog7iita.^ This tract of land he bought at a 

^ Bacon was ever desirous, as may be seen from earlier pat^es. that 
his works might be turned into foreign languages, fearing some day 
a bankruptcy of books. See p. 100, and see pp. 78 and 75. 

^ See the Britannica article on Australia, " Terra Australis incog- 
nita" is mentioned as a possible site for the New Athmtis, as will 
appear in our quotation from the Anatomy of Melanchol}", issued in 
1621, p. 21. And see the expression in the Defoe article, p. 44. 



570 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

very great pennyworth from the discoverers themselves 
(though some pretended to doubt whether they had ever 
been there), and then retailed it into several cantons to 
certain dealers, who carried over colonies, but were all 
shipwrecked in the voyage. Upon which lord Peter sold 
the said continent to other customers again, and again, 
and again, and again, with the same success." 

We now, in connection with Bacon's proposal to James 
and his Parliament for revenue, and to be attained through 
reformed criminals, true penitents, quote from p. 84 
another of these projects. 

" I must needs mention one more of lord Peter's proj- 
ects, which was very extraordinary, and discovered him 
to be master of a high reach and profound invention. 
AVhenever it happened that any rogue of Newgate was 
condemned to be hanged, Peter would offer him a pardon 
for a certain sum of money ; which, when the poor caitiff 
had made all shifts to scrape up and send, his lordship 
would return a piece of paper in this form : — 

" ' To all mayors, sheriffs, jailors, constables, bailiffs, 
hangmen, etc. Whereas we are informed that A. B. re- 
mains in the hands of you, or some of you, under the 
sentence of death. We will and command you, upon sight 
hereof, to let the said prisoner depart to his own habita- 
tion, whether he stands condemned for murder, sodomy, 
rape, sacrilege, incest, treason, blasphemy, etc., for which 
this shall be your sufficient warrant ; and if you fail 
hereof, Gr — d — mn you and yours to all eternity. And so 
we bid you heartily farewell. 

" ' Your most humble 

" ' Man's man,^ 

" ' Emperor Peter.* 

'As to this most unusual expression "man's man," we from 
Bacon quote as follows : " This in all humbleness, according to my 
vowed care and fidelity, being no man's man but your Majesty's, 
I present, leave, and submit to your Majesty's better judgment," 
etc. (Bacon's Letters, vol. v., p. 172.) What will the would-be 
doubting reader say as to this ? And, again, Promus, 42. Man is 
man's god. In the Anatomy of Abuses, p. 2, we have : "But he 
that knoweth all things (which thing none doth but God alone) he is 
(as it were) a God among men." Bacon says : " A King is a mortal 
god on earth." And in Pericles, Act i., sc. 1, p. 291, we have: 
*• Kings are earth's gods, "etc. And in Actiii., sc. 2, p. 335, we have : 

" I held it ever, 
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 571 

'*The wretches, trusting to this, lost their lives and 
money too. 

'* I desire of those whom the learned among posterity 
will appoint for commentators upon this elaborate treatise, 
that they will proceed with great caution upon certain 
dark points, wherein all who are not vere adepti may be 
in danger to form rash and hasty conclusions, especially 
in some mysterious paragraphs, where certain arcana are 
joined for brevity's sake, which in the operation must be 
divided. And I am certain that future sons of art will 
return large thanks to my memory for so grateful an 

Concerning some of James' methods, including his habit 
of swearing, we from pp. 57 and 58 of Weldon's '* Court 
and Character of King James" quote as follows : 

" By his frequenting Sermons he appeared Religious ; 
yet his Tuesday Sermons if you will believe his own 
Countrymen, that lived in those times when they were 
erected, and well understood the cause of erecting them 
were dedicated to a strange piece of devotion.^ 

'* He would make a great deal too bold with God in his 
passion, both in cursing and swearing, and one strain 
higher, verging on blasphemy ; But would in his better 
temper say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, 
and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from 

Than nobleness and riches : careless heirs 

May the two latter dariien and expend ; 

But immortality attends the former, 

Making a man a god. 'Tis known, I ever 

Have studied physic, through which secret art, 

By turning o'er authorities, I have 

(Together with my practice) made familiar 

To me and to my aid the blest infusions 

That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones ; 

And I can speak of the disturbances 

That nature works, and of her cures ; which give me 

A more content in course of true delight 

Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, 

Or tie my treasure up in silken bags. 

To please the fool and death. ' ' 

"Virtue and cunning," or honesty and policy, were the qualities 
most valued by Bacon. See sheephook, p. 78. Let this play be looked 
at with care. 

' Here is an allusion, we think, to what in the Defoe articles is 
called the " Hell- Fire Club." or 



572 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

passion : He had need of great assurance, rather than 
hopes, that would make daily so bold with God. 

" He was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the 
circumventing any great man, the change of a Favorite, 
insomuch as a very wise man was wont to say, he believed 
him the wisest fool in Christendom, meaning him wise in 
small things, but a fool in weighty affairs. 

" He ever desired to prefer mean men in great places, 
that when he turned them out again, they should have no 
friend to bandy with them : And besides, they were so 
hated by being raised from a mean estate, to over-top all 
men, that every one held it a pretty recreation to have 
them often turned out. There was in this King's time, 
at one instant living, two Treasurers, three Secretaries, 
two Lord Keepers, two Admirals, three Lord Chief Jus- 
tices, yet but one in play, therefore this King had a pretty 
faculty in putting out and in : By this you may perceive 
in what his wisdom consisted, but in great and weighty 
affairs, even at his wits' end. 

" He had a trick to cozen himself with bargains under- 
hand, by taking 1000/. or 10,000?. as a bribe, when his 
Counsel was treating with his Customers to raise them to 
so much more yearly, this went into his Privy purse ; 
wherein he thought he had over- reached the Lords, but 
cozened himself ; but would as easily break the bargain 
upon the next offer, saying, he was mistaken and de- 
ceived, and therefore no reason he should keep the bar- 
gain ; this was often the case with the Farmers of the 
Customs ; He was infinitely inclined to prayer, but more 
out of fear than conscience, and this was the greatest 
blemish this King had through all his Eeign, otherwise 
he might have been ranked with the very best of our 
Kings, yet sometimes would he show pretty flashes which 
might easily be discerned to be forced, not natural ; And 
being forced, could have wished, rather, it would have re- 
coiled back to himself, then carried to that King it had 
concerned, lest he might have been put to the trial, to 
maintain his seeming valour." 

Again, Section 5 of the article concerns critics, and opens 
thus : " We^ whom the world is pleased to honour with 

^ The word " wc" here alhides, we judge, to the characters or 
parts wliicli Bacon prepared to be played upon the stage of the 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 573 

the title of modern authors, should never have been able 
to compass our great design of an everlasting remem- 
brance and never dying fame, if our endeavours had not 
been so highly serviceable to the general good of mankind. 
This, universe ! is the adventurous attempt of me thy 
secretary ;^ 

" * — Quern vis perferre laborem 

Suadet, et inducit noctes vigilare serenas.' 

** To this end I have some time since, with a world of 
pains and art, dissected the carcass of human nature, and 
read many useful lectures upon the several parts, both 
containing and contained : till at last it smelt so strong 
I could preserve it no longer. Upon which I have been 
at a great expense to fit up all the bones with exact con- 
texture and in due symmetry ; so that I am ready io show 
a very complete anatomy thereof to all curious gentlemen 
and others." 

Bacon's babe we have already called under review in 
connection with the play of Hamlet, and we purpose soon 
a like review as to the members and structure of his here al- 
luded-to jointed baby of the Defoe period. See p. 9;:^, note 4. 

The subject of the Church is again taken up in Section 
6. Let it be here investigated as to whether some of these 
later sections do not concern the Church prior to the 
Reformation, and through fear of detection transposed in 
order to break relations. This would not touch the ques- 
tion of the author's fears, however, as by placing Bucking- 
ham and the King in a couplet, as in the play of The Tem- 
pest, but concerns only those issuing the work. 

At p. 571 we have seen that King James was interested 

Defoe period. Tiiis was " the adventurous attempt of me"— Bacon 
— the secretary. Furtlier on in the quotation he represents the 
anatomy of the work to be complete and ready for exhibition. 

^ Touching the expression " me thy secretary," we quote the open- 
ing words of ch. 2, Book 8 of the De Augmentis thus : " The 
Doctrine concerning Negotiation is divided into tJie Doctrine con- 
cerning Scattered Occasions, and the Doctrine concerning Advancement 
in Life ; whereof the one comprises all variety of business, and is 
as it were the secretary of the whole department of life ; the other 
merely selects and suggests such things as relate to the improve- 
ment of a man's own fortune, and may serve each man for a private 
notebook or register of his own affairs." 

And note the character " The Lord Secretary" in Bunyan's Holy 
War. 



574 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

in some strange views. We have also mentioned a fear 
existing as to a union between Peter and a branch of 
Jack's disciples known as the ^Eolists. 

Section 6 as to this Sect, ends thus : '' Sometimes 
they would call him Jack the bold, sometimes, Jack with 
a lantern ; sometimes, Dutch Jack ; sometimes, French 
Hagh ; sometimes, Tom the beggar ; and sometimes, 
Knocking Jack of the North. And it was under one, or 
some, or all of these appellations, which I leave the learned 
reader to determine, that he has given rise to the most 
illustrious and epidemic sect of Jj]olists ; who, with hon- 
orable commemoration, do still acknowledge the renowned 
JACK for their author and founder. Of whose original, 
as well as principles, I am now advancing to gratify the 
world with a very particular account. 

" ' — Melleo contiiigens cuncta lepore.' " 

The food which Bacon, like the bee, had prepared out 
of ancient and modern learning to sustain his mentioned 
anatomy is made the subject of Section 7, and which 
should be read in full. See Bacon's statement quoted 
in our preface to this work. 

Bacon's allusions to ^olus and his views upon the winds, 
already considered, pp. 47-52, we would now call distinctly 
into relation with Section 8 of this article, and which 
opens thus : 

'' The learned delists maintain the original cause of 
all things to be wind, from which principle this whole 
universe was at first produced, and into which it must at 
last be resolved ; that the same breath which had kindled 
and blew up the flame of nature should one day blow it 
out— ^ 

" ' Quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans.' 

^ In Defoe's Jure Divino, p. 3, note 9, we have : " ^olus, fancied 
to be the son of Jupiter, by Acesta, daughter of Hippota ; for most 
of these gods and goddesses were but Jupiter's bastards. The truth 
is, this JEoIus was a very skilful astronomer, and particularly studi- 
ous about the nature of the winds ; and because from the clouds and 
vapours of the ^olian Islands, where this philosopher lived, he 
foretold storms and tempests a great while before they came, the 
ignorant people fancied them under his power, and that he could 
raise them or still them when he pleased : and from hence he was 
called king of the winds, and so, after his death, a god of the winds," 
And in the Anatomy of Abuses, p. 40, we have : ' ' But if ^olus 



THEEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 575 

"This is what the aclepti understand by i\iQ\r anima 
muncU ; that is to say, the spirit, or breath, or wind of 
the world ; for, examine the whole system by the particu- 
lars of nature, and you will find it not to be disputed. 
For whether you please to call the forma informans of man 
by the name of spiritus, animus, afflahis, or anima ; what 
are all these but several appellations for wind, which is 
the ruling element in every compound, and into which 
they all resolve upon their corruption ? Farther, what is 
life itself but, as it is commonly called, the breath of our 
nostrils ? Whence it is very justly observed by naturalists 
that wind still continues of great emolument in certain 
mysteries not to be named, giving occasion for these happy 
epithets of Uirgidus and infiatuSy applied either to the 
e7nitte7it or recipient organs. 

" By what I have gathered out of ancient records, I find 
the compass of their doctrine took in two-and-thirty 
points, wherein it would be tedious to be very particular. 
However, a few of their most important precepts, deduci- 
ble from it, are by no means to be omitted ; among which 
the following maxim was of much weight ; that since 
wind had the master share, as well as operation, in every 
compound, by consequence, those beings must be of chief 
excellence wherein that primordium appears most promi- 
nently to abound ; and therefore man is in the highest 
perfection of all created things, as having by the great 
bounty of philosophers, been endued with three distinct 
animas or winds, to which the sage delists, with much 
liberality, have added a fourth, of equal necessity as well 
as ornament with the other three ; by this quartum 
principium taking in the four corners of the world ; 
which gave occasion to that renowned cahalist, Bumhastus, 
[one of the names of Paracelsus], of placing the body of a 
man in due position to the four cardinal points." See 
quotation from Addison, p. 458. As to Paracelsus, see 
Bacon's Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 486. 

with his blasts, or Neptune with his storms, chance to hit upon the 
crazy barks of their bruised ruffs, then they go fiip-flop in the wind 
like rags that flew abroad lying upon their shoulders like the dish- 
cloth of a slut. But wot you what ? the devil, as he, in the fulness 
of his malice, first invented these ruffs, so hath he now found out 
also two great pillars to bear up and maintain this his kingdom of 
pride withal (for the devil is king and prince over all the childien of 
pride).' 



576 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

And in the same section, p. 117, we have : 
" Thus in the choice of a devil it has been the usual 
method of mankind to single out some being, either in 
act or in vision, which was in most antipathy to the god 
they had framed. Thus also the sect of yEolists possessed 
themselves with a dread and horror and hatred of two 
malignant natures, betwixt whom and the deities they 
adored perpetual enmity was established. The first of 
these was the chameleon,^ sworn foe to inspiration, who in 
scorn devoured large influences of their gods, without 
refunding the smallest blast by eructation. The other was 
a huge terrible monster called Moulinavent, who. with 
four strong arms, waged eternal battle with all their 
divinities, dexterously turning to avoid their blows, and 
repay them with interest. 

'' Thus furnished and set out with gods, as well as 
devils, was the renowned sect of ^olists, which makes at 
this day so illustrious a figure in the world, and whereof 
that polite nation of Laplanders*^ are, beyond all doubt, a 
most authentic branch ; of whom I therefore cannot, with- 
out injustice, here omit to make honorable mention ; since 
they appear to be so closely allied in point of interest, as 
well as inclinations, with their brother ^olists aoiong us, 
as not only to buy their winds by wholesale from the same 
merchants,^ but also to retail them after the same^rate and 
method, and to customers much alike. 



' Promus, 794, Chameleon, Proteus, Euripus. (Chameleon, Eras. 
Ad., 418, 709 ; Proteus, 413, 709 ; Euripus, 812.) In the Two Gen- 
tlemen of Verona, Act ii., sc. 2, p. 139, we have : 

" Speed. Ay, but hearken, sir : though the chameleon Love can feed 
on the air, I am one that am nourish 'd by my victuals, and would 
fain have meat : O ! be not like your mistress ; be moved, be 
moved." 

In Hamlet, Act iii.. sc. 2, p. 286, we have : 

" King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ? 
Ham. Excellent, i' faith ; of the cliameleon's''dish. I eat the air, 
promise- cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so." See p. 204. 

The chameleon and its habits are described in Sub. 360 of Bacon's 
Natural History. And see p. 35. 

^ See the Laplander's gifts described in Defoe's " Duncan Camp- 
bell." 

^ Bacon applies the word merchants to the winds, as we have seen, 
and speaks of their being " traders in vapours." See p. 49, note 3. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 577 

'* Now, whether this system here delivered was wholly 
compiled by Jack, or, as some writers believe, rather 
copied, from the original at Delphos, with certain addi- 
tions and emendations, suited to the times an^ circum- 
stances, I shall not absolutely determine. This I may 
atlirm, that Jack- gave it at least a new turn, and formed 
it into the same dress and model .as it lies deduced by 
me." ' 

\Ye proceed next to Section 9, which alludes, v/e think, 
to the troubles of The Tempest. AVe regard it a most 
biting satire by Bacon upon himself in thinking to be able 
to compass his religious and philosophic methods through 
such a king as he found James to be. Beginning at p. 
12G, we quote the following : 

" But when a man's fancy gets astride on his reason ; 
when imagination is at cuffs with the senses ; and convmon 
understanding, as well as common sense, is j^icked out of 
doors ; the first proselyte he make* is himself ; and when 
that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in 
bringing over others ; a strong delusion always operating 
from without as vigiorously as from within. For cant and 
vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling 
is to the touch. Those entertainments and pleasures we 
most value in life are such as dupe and play the wag with 
the senses. For if we take an examination of what is 
generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either 
to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its 
properties and adjuncts will herd under this short defini- 
tion, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. 
And first, with relation to the mind or understanding, it 
is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth ; 
and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination 
can build nobler scenes, and produce more wonderful revo- 
lutions, than fortune or nature will be at the expense to 
furnish. Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice 
thus determining him, if we consider that the debate 
merely lies between things past and things conceived : 
and so the question is only this ; whether things that have 
place in the imagination may not as properly be said to 

^ See the Britannica article on John Calvin, of whom Bacon was 
doubtless in early years a great student. He was three years of age 
at Calvin's death. Calvin at one time had much interest in Ochino, 
whose views have passed somewhat under review^ See p. 125. 
19 



578 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

exist as those that are seated in the memory ; which may 
be justly held in the affirmative, and very mnch to the 
advantage of the former, since this is acknowledged to be 
tlie womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more 
than the grave.' Again, if we take this definition of hap- 
piness, and examine it with reference to the senses, it will 
be acknowledged wonderfully adapt. How fading and 
insipid do all objects accost us that are not conveyed in 
the vehicle of delusion ! how shrunk is everything as it 
appears in the glass of nature I so that if it were not for 
the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted 
angles, varnish and tinsel, there would be a mighty level 
in the felicity of enjoyments of mortal men. If this were 
seriously considered by the world, as I have a certain 
reason to suspect it hardly will, men would no longer 
reckon among their high points of wisdom the art of ex- 
posing weak sides and publishing infirmities ; an employ- 
ment, in my opinion, neither better nor worse than that 
of unmasking, which, I think, has never been allowed fair 
usage either in the world or in the playhouse. 

" In the proportion that credulity is a more peaceful 
possession of the mind than curiosity, so far preferable is 
that wisdom which converses about the surface to that 
pretended philosophy which enters into the depths of 
things, and then comes gravely back with informations 
and discoveries that in the inside they are good for noth* 
iug. The two senses to which all objects first address 
themselves are the sight and the touch ; these never examine 
farther than the colour, the shape, the size, and whatever 
other qualities dwell or are drawn by art upon the outward 
of bodies ; and then comes reason ofiticiously with tools 
for cutting, and opening, and mangling, and piercing, 
offering to demonstrate that they are not of the same con- 
sistence quite through.- Now I take all this to be the last 
degree of perverting nature ; one of whose eternal laws it is, 
to put her best furniture forward. And therefore, in 
order to save the charges of all such expensive anatomy 

' We here again have a Baconian use of the word " womb," and 
as applied to the imagination. That which is born in the imagi- 
nation is entombed in memory (pp. 83, 184, 258). 

^ Bacon was himself this great anatomist, in the plays, the Anatomy 
of Abuses, the Anatomy of Melancholy, etc., and the world had 
given him no thanks. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 579 

for the time to come, I do here think fit to inform the 
reader that in such conclusions as these reason is certainly 
in tlie right ; and that, in most corporeal things which 
have fallen under my cognizance, the outside has been 
infinitely preferable to the in : wherefore I have been 
farther convinced from some late experiments. Last week 
I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how 
much it altered her person for the worse. Yesterday I 
ordered the carcass of a beau to be stripped in my pres- 
ence ; when we were all amazed to find so many unsus- 
pected faults under one suit of clothes. Then I laid 
open his brain, his heart, and his spleen : but I plainly 
perceived at every operation, that the farther we proceeded 
we found the defects increase upon us in number and 
bulk : from all which, I justly formed this conclusion to 
myself, that whatever philosopher or projector can find 
out an art to solder and patch up the flaws and imperfec- 
tions of nature will deserve much better of mankind, and 
teach us a more useful science, than that so much in pres- 
ent esteem, of widening and exposing them, like him who 
held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic. And he 
whose fortunes and dispositions have placed him in a con- 
venient station to enjoy the fruits of this noble art ; he 
that can with Epicurus, content his ideas with the films 
and images that fly off upon his senses from the superficies 
of things ; such a man, truly wise, creanas off nature, 
leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason 
to lap up. This is the sublime and refined point of 
felicity, called the possession of being well deceived ; the 
serene, peaceful state of being a fool among knaves " 

Let the word " feather'^ as used in this section be 
called into relation with Bacon's already quoted notes, 
and wherein he says he is charged with having a feather 
in his head. Note also the sentence " Now, is the reader 
exceedingly curious to learn whence this vapour took its 
rise, which had so long set the nation at a gaze ? what 
secret wheel, what hidden spring, could put into motion 
so wonderful an engine?" Also : '* For to speak a bold 
truth, it is a fatal miscarriage so ill to order affairs as to 
pass for a fool in one company, when in another you might 
be treated as a philosopher. Which I desire some certain 
gentlemen of my acquaintance to lay up in their hearts as 
a very seasonable inimendo.''^ 



580 THREAD OF THE LABYKIKTH. 

Note also in this section the Baconian use of such 
words as distemper, madness, kindles, vapour, middle 
region, mist, comely, face of nature, yarions original, uni- 
versal monarchy, adust, ^ for that time, fortuitous con- 
course, all men's opinions,^ tie, miscarriage, fitter, nar- 
rowly, " pattern of human learning," *' will herd under 
that definition," " hatcher and breeder of business." 
Note in the article concerning the king or prince the ex- 
pression " the reformed religion, which had once been his 
own," also the allusion to Ba'con's Holy War in the words, 
" Some again, of a deeper sagacity, sent him into Asia to 
subdue the Turk and recover Palestine." 

But it may be asked, What is to be attained by showing 
the authorship of this literature ? This : The relations once 
known which gave it birth, light it as an entire structure, 
and show it the greatest literary carcass ever framed by 
mortal man. It will also be found to contain material 
which will *' set the ants," the race, '* anew at work." 

We turn next to Section 10 and quote as follows : 

*' In the mean time I do here give this public notice, 
that my resolutions are to circumscribe within this dis- 
course the whole stock of matter I have been so many 
years providing. Since my vein is once opened, I am con- 
tent to exhaust it all at a running, for the peculiar advan- 
tage of my dear country, and for the universal benefit of 
mankind. Therefore, hospitably considering the number 
of my guests, they shall have my whole entertainment at 
a meal ; and I scorn to set up the leavings in the cupboard. 
What the guests cannot eat may be given to the poor ; and 
the dogs under the table may gnaw the bones. This I 
understand for a more generous proceeding than to turn 



' This word will be found used several times by Bacon in his 
Natural History, and in his essay entitled " Of Ambition" he says : 
"But if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becomes adust 
and thereby mahgn and venomous." 

^ Throughout these entire writings this form of expression, " men's 
opinions," " men's minds," etc., is of universal use, and for which 
Addison in a foot-note to p. 171 of vol. iii. is thus criticised, 
" Men's minds.'] Men's for the genitive plural of man, is not allow- 
able. — We say, a man's mind, but we can only say, tlie minds of, men, 
as Mr. Addison should have done here." These works are one in 
their errors as in every other sense. And this though Mr. Addison's 
literary period Wtts one hundred years later. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 581 

the company's stomacli, by inviting them again to-morrow 
to a scurvy meal of scraps.^ 

" If the reader fairly considers the strength of what I 
have advanced in the foregoing section, I am convinced it 
will produce a wonderful revolution in his notions and 
opinions ; and he will be abundantly better prepared to 
receive and to relish the concluding part of this miraculous 
treatise. Readers may be divided into three classes — the 
superficial, the ignorant, and the learned : and I have with 
much felicity fitted my pen to the genius and advantage of 
each. The superficial reader will be strangely provoked to 
laughter ; which clears the breast and lungs, is sovereign 
against the spleen, and the most innocent of all diuretics. 
The ignorant reader, between whom and the former the 
distinction is extremely nice, will find himself disposed to 
stare ; which is an admirable remedy for ill eyes, serves to 
raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspi- 
ration. But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose 
benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others 
wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his specu- 
lations for the rest of his life. It were much to be wished, 
and I do here humbly propose for an experiment, tliat 
every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest 
scholars in his dominions, and shut them up close for seven 
years in seven chambers, with a command to write seven 
ami)le commentaries on this comprehensive discourse. I 

' As to literary " scraps," we from Love's Labour's Lost, Act v., 
sc, 1, p. 433, quote as follows : 

" Hoi. Most military sir, salutation. 

Moth. [To Cost.] Tliey have been at a great feast of languages, 
and stolen the scraps. 

Cost. O ! they have lived long in the alms-basket of words. I 
marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word ; for thou art not 
so long by the head as homorificabilitudinitatibus : thou art easier 
swallowed than a flap-dragon. 

Moth. Peace ! the peal begins. 

Ar7n. [To IIol.] Monsieur, are you not letter 'd ? 

Moth. Yes, yes ; he teaches boys the horn-book : 
What is a, b, spelt backwards with a horn on his head ?" 

Bacon in ch. 2 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis, and which concerns 
the wisdom of transmission, says: " Lastly, as aphorisms exhibit 
only certain scraps and fragments of the sciences they carry with 
them an invention to others for adding and lending their assistance, 
whereas method dresses up the sciences into bodies, and make men 
imagine they have them complete." (Bohn ed,, p. 229.) 



582 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

shall venture to affirm that, whatever difference may be 
found in their several conjectures, they will be all, without 
the least distortion, manifestly deducible from the text. 
Meanwhile, it is my earnest request that so useful an under- 
taking may be entered upon, if their majesties please, with 
all convenient speed ; because I have a strong inclination, 
before I leave the world, to taste a blessing which we 
mysterious writers can seldom reach till we have gotten 
into our graves : whether it is, that fame, being a fruit 
grafted on the body, can hardly grow, and much less ripen, 
till the stock is in the earth ; or whether she be a bird of 
prey, and is lured, among the rest, to pursue after the 
scent of a carcass ; or whether she conceives her trumpet 
sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by 
the advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a hollow 
vault. 

** It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors,' after 
they once found out this excellent expedient of dying, have 
been peculiarly happy in the variety as well as extent of 
their reputation. For night being the universal mother of 
things,^ wise philosophers hold all writings to be fruitful 
in the pro2:)ortion that they are dark ; and therefore, the 
true illuminated (that is to say, the darkest of all) liave 
met with such numberless commentators, whose scholastic 
midwifery® has delivered them of meanings that the authors 
themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very 
justly be allowed the lawful parents of them ; the words 
of such writers being like seed, which, however scattered 
at random, when they light upon a fruitful ground, will 
multiply far beyond either the hopes or imagination of the 



' Bacon in ch. 2 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis, and which con- 
cerns the wisdom of transmission, says : "This concealed or enig- 
matical method was itself also employed by the ancients with pru- 
dence and judgment, but is of late dishonoured by many, who use 
it as a false light to set off their counterfeit wares. The design of it 
seems to have been, by the veil of tradition to keep tiie vulgar from 
the secrets of sciences, and to admit only such as had, by tlie help 
of a master, attained to the interpretation of darli sayings, or w^ere 
al)le, by the strength of their own genius, to enter within the veil." 
(Bohn ed., p. 228.) And see our quotation from Addison, p. 456. 

^ See these views, p. 133. 

" As to this distinctive use of the word " midwife" by Swift, see 
its use by both Bacon and Defoe at p. 20. 

"* Bacon says : " For although depth of secrecy and concealment 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 583 

Section 11 opens thus : 

** After so wide a compass as I have wandered, I do now 
gladly overtake and close in with my subject, and shall 
henceforth hold on with it an even pace to the end of my 
journey, except some beautiful prospect appears within 
sight of my way ; whereof though at present I have neither 
warning nor expectation, yet upon such an accident, come 
when it will, I shall beg my reader's favour and company, 
allowing me to conduct him through it along with myself." * 

This section concerns Jack and the ^olists. Was James 
the First either inclined to or a believer in this sect ? In 
connection with this thought, we from p. l-l-l quote as 
follows : 

^' He had a tongue so musculous and subtle, that he 
could twist it up into his nose, and deliver a strange kind 
of speech from thence.' He was also the first in these 
kingdoms who began to improve the Spanish accomplish- 
ment of braying ; and having large ears, perpetually ex- 
posed and erected, he carried his art to such a perfection, 
that it was a point of great difficulty to distinguish, either 
by the view or the sound, between the original and the 
copy.'' 

^ Again, p. 146 : *^ It was highly worth observing the 
singular effects of that aversion or antipathy which Jack 
and his brother Peter seemed, even to an affectation, to 
bear against each other. Peter had lately done some 
rogueries that forced him to abscond, and he seldom ven- 
tured to stir out before night, for fear of bailiffs. Their 
lodgings were at the two most distant parts of the town 
from each other ; and whenever their occasions or humours 
called them abroad, they would make choice of the oddest 

of desifljns, and that manner of action, which effects everythins^ by 
dark arts and methods (or inenees sourdes as the French call them) be 
both useful and admirable ; yet frequently, as is said, dissimulation 
breeds errors which ensnare the dissembler himself." (De Aug- 
mentis, ch. 2, Book 8.) 

* There are reasons to think that Lord Bacon was, from early 
years, preparing to re-enact his life incidents upon posterity's stage. 
Had it not been for his fall, other methods were intended for the 
laudation of his Shakespeare Mask. See p. 114. 

^ In Weldon's " Court and Character of Kmg James," p. 55, it is 
said that " his beard was very thin ; his tongue too large for his 
mouth, which ever made him drink very uncomely, as if eating his 
drink, which came out into the cup of each side his mouth." 



584 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

unlikely times, and most uncouth rounds they could in- 
vent, that they might be sure to avoid one another ; yet, 
after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet. The 
reason of which is easy enough to apprehend ; for, the 
frenzy and the spleen of both having the same foundation, 
we may look upon them as two pair of compasses, equally 
extended, and the fixed foot of each remaining in the same 
centre, which, though moving contrary ways at first, will 
be sure to encounter somewhere or other in the circum- 
ference." 

The section ends thus : 

" Now, he that will examine human nature with circum- 
spection enough may discover several handles,' whereof the 
six senses alfords one a-piece, besides a great number that 
are screwed to the passions, and some few riveted to the 
intellect.'' Among these last, curiosity is one, and of all 
others, affords the firmest grasp : curiosity, that spur in 
the side, that bridle^ in the mouth, that ring in the nose, 
of a lazy and impatient and a grunting reader. By this 
handle it is, that an author should seize upon his readers ; 
which as soon as he has once compassed, all resistance and 
struggling are in vain ; and they become his prisoners as 
close as he pleases, till weariness or dulness force him to 
let go his grip. 

** And therefore, I, the author of this miraculous treat- 
ise, having hitherto, beyond expectation, maintained, by 
the aforesaid handle, a firm hold upon my gentle readers, 
it is with great reluctance that I am at length compelled 
to remit my grasp ; leaving them, in the perusal of what 
remains, to that natural oscitancy inherent in the tribe. 
I can only assure thee, courteous reader, for both our com- 
forts, that my concern is altogether equal to thine for my 
unhappiness in losing, or mislaying among my papers, the 
remaining part of these memoirs ; which consisted of acci- 
dents, turns, and adventures, both new, agreeable, and 

^ We here again have this distinctive!}'" used Baconian word 
" liandle," and now found in Swift. 

2 It may be seen at p. 138 that Bacon classes sex as the sixth sense. 

3 Here, again, we have Bacon's " spur" and " bridle," and spread 
everywhere in the plays. Bacon says : " So that I conclude, that if 
your Majesty take a profit of them in the interim (considering you 
refuse profit from the old company), it will be bolh spur and bridle 
to them, to make them pace aright to your Majesty's end. " (Bacon's 
Letters, vol. v., p. 173. And see p. 142.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 585 

surprising ; and therefore calculated, in all due points, to 
the delicate taste of this our noble age. But, alas ! with 
my utmost endeavours, I have been able only to retain a 
few of the heads. Under which, there was a full account 
how Peter got a protection out of the King's bench ; and 
of a reconcilement between Jack and him, upon a design 
that they had, in a certain rainy night, to trepan brother 
Martin into a sponging-house, and there strip him to the 
skin. How Martin, with much ado, showed them both a 
fair pair of heels. How a new warrant came out against 
Peter ; upon which, how Jack left him in the lurch, stole 
his protection, and made use of it himself. How Jack's 
tatters came into fashion in court and city ; how he got 
upon a great horse, and eat custard. But the particulars 
of all these, with several others which have now slid out of 
my memory, are lost beyond all hopes of recovery. For 
which misfortune, leaving my readers to condole with 
each other, as far as they shall find it to agree with their 
several constitutions, but conjuring them by all the friend 
ship that has passed between us, from the title-page to 
this, not to proceed so far as to injure their healths for an 
accident past remedy — I now go on to the ceremonial part 
of aa accomplished writer, and therefore, by a courtly 
modern, least of all others to be omitted." 

Note in this section the expressions ^' none of my case,*' 
*' noble matter," '^blow of fate," "fell to prayers,'' 
'* ambient heat," " feared no colours," " of this more 
hereafter." See as to the last expression p. 395. 

In the foregoing quotation the use of the word '' handle," 
as a something for mind or memory to take hold of, is dis- 
tinctly Baconian. See Novum Organum, Aph. 26, Book 
2. We quote a part, thus : ^' Other instances afford the 
following species : namely, that a multitude of circum- 
stances or handles assist the memory, such as writing in 
paragraphs, reading aloud, or recitation. Lastly, other 
instances afford still another species ; that the things we 
anticipate, and which rouse our attention, are more easily 
remembered than transient events ; as if you read any 
work twenty times over, you will not learn it by heart so 
readily as if you were to read it but ten times, trying each 
time to repeat it, and when your memory fails you looking 
into the book. There are, therefore, six lesser forms, as it 
were, of things which assist the memory : namely — 1, the 



586 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

separation of infinity ; 2, the connection of the mind with 
the senses ; 3, .the impression in strong passion ; 4, the 
impression on the mind when pure ; 5, the multitude of 
handles ;^ 6, anticipation." 

Among the conchiding remarks of the article^ we have : 
" In my disposure of employments of the brain I have 
thought fit to make invention the master,^ and to give 
method and reason the office of its lackeys.* The cause 
of this distinction was, from observing it my peculiar case 
to be often under a temptation of being witty, upon occa- 
sion where I could be neither wise, nor sound, nor anything 
to the matter in hand. And I am too much a servant of 
the modern way to neglect any such opportunities, whatever 
pains or improprieties I may be at to introduce them.^' 

This great satire is brought to a close under the title 
** A Project for the Universal Benefit of Mankind,'' and 
which we regard as containing allusions to the ruin of 
Bacon's great scheme concerning his Solomon's House of 
the New Atlantis. It is as follows : 

" The author, having laboured so long, and done so much, 
to serve and instruct the public, without any advantage to 
himself, has at last thought of a project which will tend to 
the great benefit of all mankind and produce a handsome 
revenue to the author. He intends to print by subscrip- 
tion, in ninety-six large volumes hi folio, an exact descrip- 
tion of 2'erra Australis incognita,* collected with great 
care and pains from 999 learned and pious authors of un- 
doubted veracity. The whole work, illustrated with maps 
and cuts agreeable to the subject, and done by the best 
masters, will cost but one guinea each volume to sub- 
scribers ; one guinea to be paid in advance, and afterwards 

^ See pp. 110 and 396, note 3, and concerning memory and the 
note-book, see De Augmentis. ch. 5, Book 5, Bohn ed., p. 212, and 
where we have : " But among all the methods and commonplace 
books we have hitherto seen, there is not one of value ; as savoring 
of the school rather than the world, and using rather vulgar and 
pedantical divisions than such as any way penetrate things." See 
Sonnet 77, p. 190. And see p. 135, note 1, and 561, note 2. 

2 The word *' master" will be found a master word with Bacon ; 
and we find him using the expressions "master wheel," "master 
passion." " than I am master of," and " the stomach is master of the 
house," etc. See p. 550, note 3. 

' This is just what is done in the play of The Tempest, Ariel being 
the master among his fellows. 

4 See pp. 21, 23, 44, 478, and 569. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 587 

a guinea on receiving each volume, except the last. This 
work will be of great use for all men, and necessary for all 
families, because it contains exact accounts of all the prov- 
inces, colonies, and mansions of that spacious countr_y, 
where, by a general doom, all transgressors of the law are 
to be transported ; and every one having this work may 
choose out the fittest and best place for himself, there being 
enough for all, so as every one shall be fully satisfied. 

" The author supposes that one copy of this work will 
be bought at the public charge, or out of the parish rates, 
for every parish church in the three kingdoms, and in all 
the dominions thereunto belonging ; and that every family 
that can command ten pounds per annum, even though 
retrenched from less necessary expenses, will subscribe for 
one. He does not think of giving out above nine volumes 
yearly ; and considering the number requisite, he intends 
to print at least 100,000 for the first edition. He is to 
print proposals against next term, with a specimen and a 
curious map of the capital city, with its twelve gates, from 
a known author, who took an exact survey of it in a dream. 
Considering the great care and pains of the author, and 
the usefulness of the work, he hopes every one will be 
ready, for their own good as well as his, to contribute 
cheerfully to it, and not grudge him the profit he may 
have by it, especially if it comes to a third or fourth edition, 
as he expects it will very soon. 

" He doubts not but it will be translated into for- 
eign languages by most nations of Europe, as well as of 
Asia and Africa, being of as great use to all those nations 
as to his own ; for this reason, he designs to procure pat- 
ents and privileges for securing the whole benefit to him- 
self from all those different princes and states ; and hopes 
to see many millions of this great work printed, in those 
different countries and languages, before his death. 

" After this business is pretty well established, he has 
promised to put a friend on another project, almost as good 
as this, by establishing insurance-offices everywhere for 
securing people from shipwreck and several other accidents 
in their voyage to this country ; and these offices shall 
furnish, at a certain rate, pilots well versed in the route, 
and that know all the rocks, shelves, quicksands, etc., that 
such pilgrims and travellers may be exposed to.^ Of these 

* He here alludes, we think, to his own shipwrecked enterprise 



588 THREAD OF THE LABYRIKTH. 

lie knows a great number ready instructed in most coun- 
tries : but the whole scheme of this matter he is to draw 
up at large and communicate to his friend. 

'^ Here ends the manuscript/' 

Portions of this work we regard as written while Bacon 
was staggering under the bitterness of his fall. We think 
it had earlier taken shape as the head centre to his lit- 
erary scheme, bat was broken and diverted by the men- 
tioned event, and which but renders it the more difficult 
of interpretation. What we unhesitatingly claim is, that 
it is a product of Bacon's pen, though we may not have 
correctly outlined it.^ The work is couched chiefly in the 
reign of James the First. And why should Jonathan 
Swift so linger here ? This author, whose eye is bent so 
sharply for his work upon posterity, is at the same time one 
whose whole attributed writings might be compassed in a 
single moderate sized volume ; and the only piece issued 
under his hand is an article of not above a dozen pages, 
entitled " A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars in 
All the Parishes of Dublin,*' and which is, we judge, but 
a garbled Bacouian piece. We think, however, that much 
of the work designed for the part played by him became 
attributed to others in the great scheme. 

As to the location of Bacon's Poetical Commonwealth, it 
is, in our quotation at p. 21, said : " The longitude, for 
some reasons, I will conceal." ^ 

As to the " longitude," we now from Addison, vol. vi., 

and to an intention of preparing a warning to others. Was The 
Pilgrim's Progress an attempt in this direction ? 

' The work, aside from some tampering with the section entitled 
"The History of Martin (continued)," and some few changes in 
names and dates, contains very few interpolations, we think. 

^ Bacon in ch. 2 of Book 6 of the De Augmentis, and which con- 
cerns the transmission of writings to posterity, says : " Certainly 
sciences, if a man rightly observe it, have, besides profundity, two 
other dimensions, namely latitude and longitude. The profundity 
relates to their truth and reality ; for it is they which give solidity. 
As to the other two, the latitude may be accounted and computed 
from one science to another ; the longitude from the highest propo- 
sition to the lowest in the same science. The one contains the true 
bounds and limits of sciences, that the propositions thereof may be 
handled properly, not promiscuously, and repetition, excursion, and 
all confusion may be avoided ; the other prescribes the rule how far 
and to what degree of particularity the propositions of a science 
should be deduced." (Phil. Works, vol. iv., p. 453.) 



THREAD OF THE LABYRIKTH. 589 

p. 681, quote as follows. Bacon claiming the right, as we 
have seen, to make merry with his own matters : 

*' Ode for Music on the Longitude. 
Becitativo. 

" Tlie longitude mist on 

By wicked Will. Wliiston, 
And not better hit on 
By good Master Ditton. 
Ritornello. 

*' So Ditton and Whiston 
May both be bep — st on ; 
And \¥histon and Ditton 
May both be besh — t on. 

*' Sing Ditton 
Besh — t on ; 
And Whiston 
Bep^-st on. 

** Sing Ditton and Wliiston, 
And Whiston and Ditton. 
Besh— t and bep— st on, 
Bep— St and besh — t on. 

Da Capo." 

See also the xiddison article on the 'Mongitu'de,"' and 
where these parties are referred to, vol. iv., p. 198. AVe 
give the first half of the article thus : 

''' I have lately entertained my reader with two or three 
letters from a traveller, and may possibly, in some of my 
future papers, oblige him with more from the same hand. 
The following one comes from a projector, which is a sort 
of correspondent as diverting as a traveller : his subject 
having the same grace and novelty to recommend it, and 
being equally adapted to the curiosity of the reader. For 
my own part, I have always had a particular fondness for 
a project, and may say, without vanity, that I have a 
pretty tolerable genius that way myself, I could rnention 
some which I have brought to maturity, others which have 
miscarried, and many more which I have yet by me, and 
are to take their fate in the world when I see a proper 
juncture. I had a hand in the land-bank, and was con- 
sulted with upon the reformation of manners. I have had 



590 THEEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

several designs upon the Thames and the New Eiver/ not 
to mention my refinementfi upon lotteries and insurances, 
and that never-to-be-forgotten project, which if it had suc- 
ceeded to my wishes, would have made gold as plentiful 
in this nation as tin and copper. If my countrymen have 
not reaped any advantage from these my designs, it was 
not for want of any good will towards them.^ They are 
obliged to me for my kind intentions as much as if they had 
taken effect. Projects are of a two-fold nature : the first 
arises from public-spirited persons, in which number I de- 
clare myself : the other proceeding from a regard to our 
private interest, to which nature is that in the following 
letter.' 

^ ^' ' Sir, A man of your reading knows very well that 
there were a set of men, in old Eome, called by the name 
of Nomenclators, that is, in English, men who could call 
every one by his name. When a great man stood for any 
public office, as that of a tribune, a consul, or a censor, he 
had always one of these Nomenclators at his elbow, who 
whispered in his ear the name of every one he met with, 
and by that means enabled him to salute every Koman 
citizen by his name when he asked him for his vote. To 
come to my purpose, I have with much pains and assiduity 
qualified myself for a Nomenclator to this great city, and 
shall gladly enter upon my office as soon as I meet with 
suitable encouragement. I will let myself out by the week 
to any curious gentleman or foreigner. If he takes me 
with him in a coach to the ring, I will undertake to teach 
him, in two or three evenings, the names of the most cele- 
brated persons who frequent that place. If he plants me 

^ As to this " New River," we from the play of Henry V., Act Iv., 
sc. 7, p. 559, quote as follows : 

" Flu. I think it is in Macedon, where Alexander is porn. I tell 
you, captain, — if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you 
shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monm.outh, 
that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in 
Macedon, and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth : it is 
call'd Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains, what is the 
name of the other river : but 'tis all one ; 'tis alike as my fingers is 
to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexan- 
der's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent 
well , for there is figures in all things." 

^ Promus, 988. (/w great matters it is enoucjh even to have uilled 
to arJiicve them. 'Tis not in mortals to command success.) 

^ Bee Bacon's statement as to the word " secretary," p. 573, note 1. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 591 

by his side in the pit, I will call out to him, in the same 
manner, the whole circle of beauties that are disposed 
among the boxes, and, at the same time, point out to him 
the persons who ogle them from their respective stations. 
I need not tell you that I may be of the same use in any 
other public assembly. Nor do I only profess the teaching 
of names, but of things. Upon the sight of a reigning 
beauty, I shall mention her admirers, and discover her gal- 
lantries, if they are of public notoriety. I shall likewise 
mark out every toast, the club in which she was elected, 
and the number of votes that were on her side. Not a 
woman shall be nnexplained that makes a figure either as 
a maid, a wife, or a widow. The men too shall be set out 
in their distinguishing characters, and declared whose prop- 
erties they are. Their wit, wealth, or good humour, their 
persons, stations, and titles, shall be described at large. 

'* * I have a wife who is a Nomenclatress, and will be 
ready, on any occasion, to attend the ladies. She is of a 
much more communicative nature than myself, and is 
acquainted with all the private history of London and 
Westminster, and ten miles around. She has fifty private 
amours which nobody yet knows anything of but herself, 
and thirty clandestine marriages that have not been touched 
by the tip of a tongue. She will wait upon any lady at 
her own lodgings, and talk by the clock after the rate of 
three guineas an hour. 

'' * St. B.— She is a near kinswoman to the author of the 
New Atlantis. 

** ' I need not recommend to a man of your sagacity the 
usefulness of this project, and do therefore beg your en- 
couragement of it, which will lay a very great obligation 
upon Your humble servant.^ 

'* After this letter from my whimsical correspondent, 
I shall publish one of a more serious nature, which deserves 
the utmost attention of the public, and in particular of 
such who are lovers of mankind. It is on no less a subject 
than that of discovering the longitude, » and deserves a 
much higher name than that of a project, if our language 
afforded any such term. But all I can say on this subject 

* From Gulliver's Travels, p. 247, we quote as follows : " I should 
then see the discovery of the longitude, the perpetual motion, the 
universal medicine, and many other great inventions, brought to the 
utmost perfection " 



592 TIIKEAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

will be superfluous, when the reader sees the names of 
those persons by whom this letter is subscribed, and who 
have done me the honour to send it me. I must only take 
notice, that the first of these gentlemen is the same person 
who has lately obliged the world with that noble plan, en- 
titled, A Scheme of the Solar System, with the Orbits of 
the Planets and Comets belonging thereto. Described 
from Dr. lialley's accurate Table of Comets, Philosoph. 
Transact. No. 297, founded on Sir Isaac Newton's wonder- 
ful discoveries, by Wm. Whiston, M.A." 

Here follows a letter concerning the longitude subscribed 
by Will. Whiston and Humphrey Ditton. It is needless to 
say that all such letters falling within the Addison articles 
are by the author of them, and that a large proportion of 
these articles have a covert meaning and subtlety equal to 
the " Tale of a Tub.'' We must confess, however, 
that we are unable to see how the mentioned authors, and 
particular works by them, and who were much later than 
Bacon's day, could be by him made the subject of com- 
ment unless these particular works were by him prepared 
and^,as a part of the scheme handed down in certain families.^ 
Notb in connection with this thought what is said of 
" Nomenclators." 

These authors are all familiar with the most subtle views 
as to the Church, the stage, cipher writing, with magic, 
with apparitions, with second sight, with dreams, with 
astrolbgy, with mythology, understanding them in the 
same sense ; and their metaphors and language character- 
istics are everywhere the same, save that in the Addison 
articles there is more pruning and polish. That portion 
of the Avork which is political in its nature ousted the 
Scotch or Stuart line from the English throne. The 
terms " W^hig" and " Tory" took their origin doubtless in 
and at the first moving of this literature. It, and not the 
mere abdication of James the Second, gave origin to what 
is known as the English Kevolution. 

But to continue : the letters attributed to Addison are 

' Concerning the putting forth of his works Bacon says : " But 
the method of publishing these things is, to have such of them as 
tend to seize the correspondences of dispositions, and purge the 
areas of minds, given out to the vulgar and talked of ; to have the 
rest handed down with selection and judgment. ' ' See p. 181. Touch- 
ng the number of the mentioned article, see p. '517. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 593 

but a portion of tliem by tlie master hand — that is, by the 
author of the body of the Addison literature, and many of 
the genuine letters are sadly garbled. See, for example, 
letters beginning at pp. 384, 423, and 426 of Addison, 
vol. V. We here, from pp. 342 and 307, give place to two 
of the genuine letters, in order that they may be called 
into language relation. The first bears date June 16th, 
1703, and is as follows : 

*' May it Please y^our Grace : By a letter that Mr. 
Tonson has shown me, 1 hnd that I am very much obliged 
to your Grace for the kind opinion that you are pleased to 
entertain of me. I should be extremely glad of an oppor- 
tunity of deserving it, and am therefore very ready to close 
with the proposal that is there made me of accompanying 
my Lord Marquis of Hertford in his travels, and doing his 
Lordship all the services that I am capable of. I have 
lately received one or two advantageous offers of the same 
nature, but as I should be very ambitious of executing any 
of your Grace^s commands, so I cannot think of taking the 
like employment from any other hands. As for the rec- 
ompense that is proposed to me, I must take the liberty 
to assure your Grace that I should not see my account in 
it, but in the hopes that I have to recommend myself to 
your Grace's favour and approbation. I am glad your 
Grace has intimated that you would oblige me to attend 
my Lord only from year to year, foi? in a twelvemonth it 
may be easily seen whether I can be of any advantage to 
his Lordship. I am sure, if my utmost endeavours can do 
anything, I shall not fail to answer your Grace's expecta- 
tions. About a fortnight hence I hope to have the honour 
of waiting on your Grace, unless I receive any commands 
to the contrary. I am, etc. 

'^ J. Addisok." 

Observe here the Baconian turns of expression, and note 
the contrasted thought in the same sentence by the use of 
the words *' as" and " so ;" also the Baconian expression 
** see my account in it." 

The second letter is under date May 27th, 1708, is covert 
in character (see Bacon's letter, p. 486), aad is as follows : 

" I cannot forbear being troublesome to your Lordship 
whilst I am in your neighborhood. The business of this 
is, to invite you to a concert of music, which I have found 



594 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

out in a neighboring wood. It begins precisely at six in 
the evening, and consists of a black- bird, a thrush, a robin- 
red-breast, and a bullfinch. There is a lark that, by way. 
of overture, sings and mounts till she is almost out of 
hearing, and afterwards, falling down leisurely, drops to 
the ground as soon as she has ended her song. The whole 
is concluded by a nightingale, that has a much better voice 
than Mrs. Tafts, and something of the Italian manner in 
her divisiols. If your Lordship will honour me with your 
company, I will promise to entertain you with much better 
music, and more agreeable scenes, than ever you met with 
at the opera ; and will conclude with a charming descrip- 
tion of a nightingale, out of our friend Virgil : 

*' * Qualis populea moerens Philomela sub umbra 
Araissos queritur foetus, quos durus arator 
Observans nido implumes detraxit ; at ilia 
Flet noctem, ramoque sedens, miserabile carmen 
Iiitegrat, et moestis late loca questibus implet.' 

" 'So, close in poplar shades, her children gone, 
The mother-nightingale laments alone ; 
Whose nest some prying churl had found, and thence 
By stealth convey'd th' unfeather'd innocence. 
But she supplies the night with mournful strains, 
And melancholy music tills the plains. — Dry den. 
" Your Lordship's most obedient,' 

" J. Addison." 

We now call this letter into relation with what Bacon 
says concerning the lark, which is " that pregmatical men 
are of the opinion that learning is like the lark which can 
mount and sing and please itself and nothing else ; but 

' Let the reader also note in Addison the letter which immediately 
precedes and follows this one. The works of Dryden we suppose to 
contain at least a portion of this literature, though as yet we have 
made but slight inspection of them. Concerning the words " the 
mother nightingale," we from Addison, vol. vi,, p. 559, quote : 

" Oft in the grove her curious mansions hung, 
His rage o'erthrows and slays the crying young ; 
The mother-bird, from far, beholds with pain 
Her kingdoms rifled, and her infants slain ; 
Whose little liv^es their parents' guilt atone. 
For crimes, alas ! expiring, not their own." 

The word " children" as here used we understand to tnean literary 
products ; in other words, children of the brain. 4 See p. 72 and 
Sonnet 77, p. 190. And as to the nightingale, see p. 55, note 1. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 695 

may know that it rather partakes of the nature of a hawk 
which can soar aloft and can also descend and strike upon 
its prey at pleasure.'^ See pp. 85 and 500. 

Now are we at the porch of a world of relations, and we 
throw wide the door. 

If Bacon be author of this letter, then stands he in re- 
lation to Lilliput and the Pvgmies of Swift ; and if with 
Swift, then with Addison.' See ''The Battle of the 
Pygmies and Cranes," Addison, vol. vi., pp. 558-73 ; 
while his article entitled " The Puppet Show,''^ p|*. 580-83, 
ends thus, and which we would have the reader note with 
some care : 

" Now sing we whence the puppet-actors came, 
What hidden power supplies the hollow frame ; 
What cunniag agent o'er the scenes presides, 
And all the secret operation guides. 
The turner shapes the useless log^ with care, 
And forces it a human form to wear : 
With the sharp steel he works the wooden race, 
And lends the timber an adopted face. 
Tenacious wires the legs and feet unite, 
And arms connected keep the shoulders right. 
Adopted organs to fit organs join, 
And joints with joints, and limbs with limbs combine. 
Then adds he active wheels and springs unseen, 
By which he artful turns the small machine, 
That moves at pleasure by the secret wires ; 
And last his voice the senseless trunk inspires. 

" From such a union of inventions came. 
And to perfection grew, the puppet-frame ; 

* De Augmentis, Book 8. eh. 2. Note also this use of the word 
" lark" in Sonnet 29, p. 294. Bacon's Promus, 1212. The lark. 

^ Bacon says : " As for novelty, no man can wade deep in learn- 
ing, without discovering that he knows nothing thoroughly ; nor 
can wonder at a puppet-show, if we look behind the curtain. With 
regard to greatness ; as Alexander, after having been used to great 
armies, and the conquests' of large provinces in Asia, when he re- 
ceived accounts of battles from Greece, which were commonly for a 
pass, a fort, or some walled town, imagined he was but reading 
Homer's battle of the frogs and the mice ; so if a man considers the 
universal frame, the earth and its inhabitants will seem to him but 
as an ant-hill, where some carry grain, some their young, some go 
empty, and all march but upon a little heap of dust. P3e Aug- 
mentis, Book 1, Bohn's ed., p. 67.) See p. 487, note 2. 

2 Please see p. 357, note 1, " Men are made of wood." In Defoe 
we have : " And how will you look like Jupiter's log of wood, which 
he gave the Frogs for a King ?" Lee, vol. ii., p. 167. 



THREAD OF THE LABYKINTfl. 

The workman's mark its origin reveal. 
And own the traces of the forming steel. 
Hence are its dance, its motions, and its tone, 
Its speaking voice, and accents not its own," 

Here have we allusion not merely to the members, but 
to the full Jointed Baby of the Defoe period. See p. 573. 

And in Swift's Island blown high in air may we behold 
the Solomon's House of the New Atlantis, and so of the 
rest. After his fall, Bacon was the Pygmy, before, the Man- 
mountain. In an epilogue, same volume, p. 532, we have : 

" The sage whose guests you are to-night is known 
To watch the public weal, though not his own : 
Still have his thoughts uncommon schemes pursued, 
And teemed with projects for his country's good. 
Early in youth his enemies have shown 
How narrowly he missed the chemic stone : 
Not Friar Bacon promised England more ; 
Our artist, lavish of his fancied ore. 
Could he have brought his great design to pass, 
Had walled us round with gold instead of brass. 
That project sunk, you saw him entertain 
A notion more chimerical and vain } 
To gave chaste morals to ungoverued youth. 
To gamesters honesty, to statesmen truth ; 
To make them virtuous all ; — a thought more bold, 
Than that of changing dross and lead to gold. 
Of late with more heroic warmth inspired. 
For still his country's good our champion fired ; 
In treaties versed, in politics grew wise, 
He looked on Dunkirk with suspicious eyes ; 
Into its dark foundations boldly dug. 
And overthrew in fight the Lord Sieur Tugghe. 
But now to nobler thoughts his view extends. 
Which I may tell, since none are here but friends. 

" In a few months, he is not without hope 
(But 'tis a secret) to convert the Pope : 
Of this, however, we'll inform you better, 
Soon as his Holiness receives his letter. 

'* Meanwhile he celebrates (for 'tis his way) 
With something singular this happy day, 

* Bacon here alludes first to his thwarted scheme for revenue, and 
second to his scheme — the Jointed Baby— of the Defoe period and 
the ends to be attained by it. See " jointed baby," p. 366, note 1. 
And in Addison, vol. iv., p. 298, we have : " I had a great deal of 
business on my hands, (says she,) being taken up the first twelve years 
of my life in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it 
in reading plays and romances." 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 597 

His lioiiest zeal ambitious to approve 
For the great mouarcli he was born to love ; 
Resolved in arms and art to do him right, 
And serve his sovereign like a trusty knight." 

It is needless to say that one great design of the Jointed 
Baby Avas to give the overthrow to the idea of the divine 
right of Kings and greater freedom to the English consti- 
tution. *' The times are out of joint," p. 94. 

At the beginning of each of Bacon's wills may be seen his 
distinct belief in the Eesurrection ; and so in Addison, vol. 
vi., p. 573, see the poem upon that subject and where it 
is said : '' These lines (the Latin) are esteemed by the 
best judges to be the finest sketch of the Eesurrection that 
any age or language has produced." As to Bacon^s writ- 
ing in verse, see his translation of various psalms. Literary 
Works, vol. ii., beginning at p. 271. And see quotations 
at p. 153. 

To those who have not reflected upon Bacon's anxious 
eye upon posterity, evidenced in every phase of these writ- 
ings, and particularly in the Sonnets, and upon aims pur- 
posed by portions of this literature, it may seem incon- 
sistent to think that a work like the " Tale of a Tub" 
could issue with criticism answered by an author already 
dead. But we must take into account the fact that the 
true author of this literature was the brightest genius the 
world has known, and that the actors in puttiug it forth 
had connection Avith, and standing in the councils of the 
nation, and longed to see the changes which it was designed 
to introduce. And accompanying it there may have ex- 
isted the expressed wish that its authorship should never 
be disclosed, unless, or until time, which with Bacon's be- 
lief is the discoverer of all things, should bring it to light. ^ 

Portions of the mentioned work issuing through journals 
managed by one set of Harley's agents, and criticisni and 
answer thereto by the true author, in others, the reissue 
would appear as we find it." Bacon here, as in the intro- 
ductory matter to his Shakespeare writings, made doubt- 
less all preparations therefor prior to his death, and so 

» Promus, 341. So give authors their due as you give time his 
due which is to discover truth. See p. 347, note 3. 

^ As to prefaces and the introductory matter to this work, see 
Bacon on prefaces at the conclusion of ch. 3 of Book 6 of the De 
Augmentis. See formula, pp. 467 and 517. 



598 TIIllEAI) OF THE LABYRINXn. 

before publicatiou. In Aph. 97 of the Novum Orgaiium 
Bacon says : 

^' No one has yet been found possessed of sufficient firm- 
ness and severity to resolve upon and undertake the task of 
entirely abolisliing common theories of notions, and apply- 
ing the mind afresh, when thus cleared and levelled, to 
particular researches ; hence our human reasoning is a 
mere farrago and crude mass made up of a great deal of 
credulity and accident, and the puerile notions it originally 
contracted. 

"But if a man of mature age, unprejudiced senses, and 
clear mind, would betake himself anew to experience and 
particulars, we might hope much more from such a one ; 
in which respect we promise oursd^ves the fortune of Alex- 
ander the Great, and let none accuse us of vanity till they 
have read the tale, which is intended to check vanity." 

We hope, therefore, to have satisfied the reader that we 
have at least struck the thread of relation to all of the 
works under review ; and this, though by new develop- 
ments we have turned somewhat aside from our original 
design, having purposed a more thorough investigation 
into the subjects of mythology, astrology, magic, second 
sight, and apparitions, as no two minds were ever yet in 
these fringed alike, and hence their better fields for proofs. 
We have, at least, in the course pursued rendered, we think, 
a more important service, by bounding what we regard as 
the true field of relations, and thus have we opened the 
way to that gigantic central system of which Bacon was 
alone the true beacon. It is true that in the course pur- 
sued two thirds of the labor expended upon the subject has 
not as yet been brought under review, but of this the 
reader may yet possibly receive the benefit. However this 
may be, the bell has been rung which will bring better wit 
to the field. 

We therefore feel content to bring our j)resent labors to 
a close in Bacon's dedicatory epistle of the *' Tale of a 
Tub" to posterity, and which is in these words : 

*' To His Royal Highness Prince Posterity. Sir, — 
I here present your highness with the fruits of a very few 
leisure hours, stolen^ from the short intervals of a world of 

* This use of the word " stolen," as connected with the subject of 
time, was not uncommon with Bacon, and his dedicatory letter of 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 599 

business, and of an employment quite alien from such 
amusements as this the poor production of that refuse of 
time, which has laid heavy upon my hands during a long 
protraction of parliament, a great dearth of foreign news, 
and a tedious fit of rainy weather ; for which, and other 
reasons, it cannot chose extremely to deserve such a pat- 
ronage as that of your highness, whose numberless virtues, 
in so few years, make the world look upon you as the future 
example to all princes ; for althougli your highness is 
hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned 
world already resolved upon appealing to your future dic- 
tates, with the lowest and most resigned submission ; fate 
having decreed you sole arbiter of the productions of 
human wit, in this polite and most accomplished age. 
Methinks the number of your appellants were enough to 
shock and startle any judge, of a genius less unlimited 
than yours ; but in order to prevent such glorious trials, 
the person, it seems, to whose care the education of your 
highness is committed, has resolved (as I am told) to keep 
you in almost a universal ignorance of your studies, which it 
is your inherent birth-right to inspect. 

*' It is amazing to me that this person should have' the 
assurance, in the face of the sun, to go about' persuading 
your highness that our age is almost wholly illiterate, and 
has hardly produced one writer upon any subject. I know 
very well, that when your highness shall come to riper 
years, and have gone through the learning of antiquity, 
you will be too curious to neglect inquiring into the authors 
of the very age before you : and to think that this insolent, 
in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to 
reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed 
to mention ; it moves my zeal and my spleen for tlie 
honour and interest of our vast fiourishing body, as well as 
of myself, for whom, I know by long experience, he has 
professed, and still continues, a peculiar malice. 

" It is not unlikely that, when your highness will one 
day peruse what I am now writing, you may be ready to 
expostulate with your governor upon the credit of what 
I have affirmed, and command me to show you some of 

the Novum Organum opens thus : " Your Majesty will perhaps 
accuse me of theft, in that I have stolen from your employments 
time sufficient for this work." See p. 95, note 1. 

^ Note the Baconian expression " go about." See pp. 32 and 394. 



600 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

our productions.^ To which he will answer (for I am well 
informed of his designs), by asking your highness where 
they are ? and what is become of them ? and pretend it a 
demonstration that there never were any, because they are 
not then to be found. Not to be found ! who has mislaid 
them ? are they sunk in the abyss of things ? it is cer- 
tain, that in their own nature, they were light enough to 
swim upon the surface for all eternity.' Therefore the 
fault is in him, Avho tied weights so heavy to their heels as 
to depress them to the centre. Is their very essence de- 
stroyed ? who has annihilated them ? were they drowned 
by purges, or martyred by joipes ? ^ who administered them 

to the posteriors of ? But, that it i^jay no longer be a 

doubt with your highness, who is to be the author of this 
universal ruin, I beseech you to observe that large and 
terrible scythe* which your governor affects to bear con- 
tinually about him. Be pleased to remark the length and 
strength, the sharpness and hardness of his nails and 
teeth : consider his baneful abominable breath, enemy to 
life and matter, infectious and corrupting : and then reflect 
whether it be possible for any mortal ink and paper of this 
generation to make a suitable resistance. ! that your 
highness would one day resolve to disarm this usurping 
mmtre du palais of his furious engines, and bring your 
empire li07's de i')age,^ 

" It were needless to recount the several methods of 
tyranny and destruction which your governor is pleased to 

' We understand the word " governor" as here used to mean 
time, and which subject is so thoroughly emphasized in all of these 
writings. 

' Bacon was ever of the opinion that less weighty matter was 
floated on to posterity, while the weighty and valuable more com- 
monly sunk, and hence did he tack light elements to the heels of 
this literature to bear it forward. Was this the " New River ' men- 
tioned at p. 590 ? Bacon says : " So that time scemeth to be of the 
nature of a river or flood, that bringeth down to us that which is 
light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is solid 
and grave." (Phil. Works, vol. iii., p. 503.) 

^ Is this an allusion to James, who had a great aversion to tobacco ? 

^ Bacon says : " Adrian strove with time for the palm of duration, 
and repaired Us decays and ruins w^ierever the touch of its scythe 
had appeared!" (De Augmentis, Book 1, Bohn ed., p. 60.) 

5 We understand him here virtually to ask Prince Posterity to 
guard and protect them "from confounding age's cruel knife." 
See Sonnet 63, p. 105. 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. GOl 

practise upon this occasion. His inveterate malice is such 
to the writings of our age, that of several thousands pro- 
duced yearly from this renowned city, before the next revo- 
lution of the sun, there is not one to be heard of : Un- 
happy infants ! many of them barbarously destroyed, before 
they have so much as learned their mother tongue to beg 
for pity. Some he stifles in their cradles ; others he 
frights into convulsions, whereof they suddenly die ; some 
he flays alive ; others he tears limb from limb. Great 
numbers are offered to Moloch ; and the rest, tainted by 
his breath, die of a languishing consumption.^ 

*' But the concern I have most at heart, is for j^our cor- 
poration of poets ; from whom I am preparing a petition 
to 3^our highness, to be subscribed with the names of one 
hundred and thirty six of the first rate ;- but whose im- 
mortal productions are never likely to reach your eyes, 
though each of them is now an humble and earnest appel- 
lant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes ready to 
show, for a support to his pretensions. The never-dying 
works of these illustrious persons, your governor, sir, has 
devoted to unavoidable death ; and your highness is to be 
made believe, that our age has never arrived at the honour 
to produce one single poet. 

'^ We confess immortality to be a great and powerful 
goddess ; but in vain we offer up to her our devotions and 
our sacrifices ; if your highnesses governor, who has usurped 
the priesthood, must, by an unparalleled ambition and 
avarice, wholly intercept and devour them. 

'' To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned, and de- 
void of writers of any kind, seems to be an assertion so 
bold and so false, that I have been some time thinking the 
contrary may almost be proved by uncontrollable demon- 
stration. It is true, indeed, that 'although their numbers 
be vast, and their productions numerous in proportion, yet 
are they hurried so hastily off the scene, that they escape 
our memory, and elude our sight. When I first thought 
of this address, I had prepared a copious list of titles to 

^ Of the peccant rumors of learning Bacon says : " The first is the 
affecting of two extremes ; antiquity and novelty : wherein the 
children of time seem to imitate their father ; for as lie devours his 
children, so they endeavour to devour each other ; whilst antiquity 
envies new improvements, and novelty is not content to add without 
defacing." (De Augmentis, Book 1, Bohn's ed., p. 49.) 



602 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

present your highness, as an undisputed argument for what 
I affirm. The originals were posted fresh upon all gates 
and corners of the streets ; but, returning in a very few 
hours to take a review, they were all torn down, and fresh 
ones in their places. I inquired after them among readers 
and booksellers ; but I inquired in vain ; the memorial of 
them was lost among men ; their places were no more to 
be found ; and I was laughed to scorn for a clown and a 
pedant, without all taste^ and refinement, little versed in 
the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of 
what had passed in the best companies of court and town. 
So that I can only avow in general to your highness, that 
we do abound in learning and wit ; but to fix upon particu- 
lars, is a task too slippery for my slender abilities. If I 
should venture in a windy day to affirm to your highness 
that there is a large cloud near the horizon, in the form 
of a bear, another in the zenith, with the head of an ass ; 
a third in the westward, with claws like a dragon ; and 
your highness should in a few moments think fit to ex- 
amine the truth, it is certain they would all be changed in 
figure and position ; new ones would arise, and all we could 
agree upon would be, that clouds there were, but that I 
was grossly mistaken in the zoography and topography of 
them. 

"But your governor perhaps may still insist, and put 
the question — What is then become of these immense bales 
of paper, which must needs have been employed in such 
numbers of books ? ^ can these also be wholly annihilate, 
and so of a sudden, as I pretend ? What shall I say to so 
invidious an objection ? it ill befits the distance between 
your highness and me, to send you for ocular conviction to 
a Jakes, or an oven ; to the windows of a bawdy-house, 
or to a sordid lantern. Books, like men their authors, 
have no more than one way of coming into the world, but 
there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no 
more. 

^ This expression, as already remarked, is found in all of the works 
under review. See pp. 22 and 26. 

^ In his last will Bacon says : " Also, I desire my executors, espe- 
cially my brother Constable, and also Mr. Bosvile, presently after 
my decease, to take into their hands all my papers whatsoever, 
which are either in cabinets, boxes, or presses, and them to seal up 
until they may at their Icisuie peruse them." (Bacon's Letters, 
vol. vii., p. 540 ) 



THREAD OP THE LABYRINTH. G03 

*' I profess to your highness, in the integrity of my 
heart, that what I am going to say is literally true this 
minute I am writing : what revolutions may happen before 
it shall be ready for your perusal, I can by no means war- 
rant ; however, I beg you to accept it as a specimen of our 
learning, our politeness, and our wit. I do therefore affirm, 
upon the word of a sincere man, that there is now actually 
in being a certain poet, called John Dryden,^ whose trans- 
lation of Virgil was lately printed in a large folio, well 
bound, and, if diligent search were made, for aught I 
know, is yet to be seen. There is another, called Nahum 
Tate, who is ready to make oath that he has caused many 
reams of verse to be published, whereof both himself and 
his bookseller (if lawfully required) can still produce 
authentic copies, and therefore wonders why the world is 
pleased to make such a secret of it. There is a third, 
laiown by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of vast com- 
prehension, a universal genius, and most profound learn- 
ing. Tliere are also one Mr. Kymer, and one Mr. Dennis, 
most profound critics, T^iere is a person styled Dr. Bent- 

' Were the parties here alhided to to be the puppet actors ? It 
is possible that as part of the scheme Bacon did have printed 
secretly and bound up some few of his works. As to whether this 
was a substituted name remains to be investigated. Note the word 
" called." An author has a right to call himself by such names as 
he may choose. From Dryden, and where occurs the word " provi- 
dence" in its Baconian sense, see p. 76, we have : 

" Or is it fortune's work, that in your head 
The curious net that is for fancies spread, 
Lets through its meshes every meaner thought, 
While rich ideas there are only caught ? 
Sure that's not all ; this is a piece too fair 
To be the child of chance, and not of care. 
No atoms casually together hurl'd 
Could e'er produce so beautiful a world. 
Nor dare I such a doctrine here admit. 
As would destroy the providence of wit." 



Again : 



With Monk you end, whose name preserved shall be, 
As Rome records Rufus' memory." 



What is said touching " The Shortest Way with the Dissenters," 
at p. 434, may be said of Dryden 's verses entitled " The Hind and 
the Panther." As to Wottou, see pp. 531 and 532. 



604 THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 

ley, who has written near a thousand pages of immense 
erudition, giving a full and true account of a certain 
squabble, of wonderful imjoortance, between himself and a 
bookseller : he is a writer of infinite wit and humour ; no 
man rallies with a better grace, and in more sprightly turns. 
Further, I avow to your highness, that with these eyes 
I have beheld the person of William Wotton, B.D., who 
has written a good sizable volume against a friend of your 
governor (from whom, alas ! he must therefore look for 
little favour), in a m.ost gentlemanly style, adorned with 
the utmost politeness and civility ; replete with discoveries 
equally valuable for their novelty and use ; and embellished 
with traits of wit, so poignant and so opposite, that he is a 
worthy yokemate to his forementioned friend. 

" Why should I go upon further particulars, which 
might fill a volume with the true eulogies of my contem- 
porary brethren ? 1 shall bequeath this piece of justice to 
a larger work, wherein I intend to write a character of the 
present set of wits in our nation ; their persons I shall de- 
scribe particularly and at len>gth, their genius and under- 
standings in miniature. 

*' In the mean time I do here make bold to present your 
highness with a faithful abstract, drawn from the universal 
body of all arts and sciences, intended wholly for your 
service and instruction : nor do I doubt in tlie least, but 
your highness will peruse it as carefully, and make as con- 
siderable imj^rovements, as other young princes have already 
done, by the many volumes of late years written for a help 
to their studies. 

*' That your highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, 
as well as years, and at last outshine all your royal ances- 
tors, shall be the daily prayers of, 

" Sir, your Highness's most obedient, etc. 

*' Dec. 1G97.'' 

Into relation with this most subtle eye upon posterity's 
literary products may we again properly recall our Head- 
light, " For I have taken all knowledge to be my provi- 
dence." By the bitterness of his fall, Bacon's subtlety was 
for a time turned into satire, and he made manifest to the 
Defoe period that learning may be a hawk to strike as well 
as a lark to soar. The same subtlety displayed in the 
*^ Tale of a Tub" we have in earlier pages traced and rational- 
ized in the sonnets. We have likewise traced his budding 



THREAD OF THE LABYRINTH. 605 

philosophy — his babe in " swaddling clouts" — into the play 
of Hamlet, and thence into The Tem2:)est, and so to the 
Jointed Baby of the Defoe period, high nonsense alone, 
save interpolations, being made the shield to its members. 



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